Early Christian missions of Ireland, Scotland, and England

^jS PRINCETON, N. J. ty

Purchased by the Hamill Missionary Fund.

BR 749 .C42 1893

Charles, Elizabeth Rundle,

1828-1896.
Early Christian missions of

•

EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.

TRIA JUNCTA IN UNO.

EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS

OF

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND.

BY

MRS. RUNDLE CHARLES,

AUTHOR OF "THE CHRONICLES OF THE SCHONBERG COTTA FAMILY,
"THREE MARTYRS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY," ETC.

PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF THE TRACT COMMITTEE.

LONDON :
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE,

NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, CHARING CROSS, W.C. ;
43, QUEEN VICTORIA STREET, E.C.

BRIGHTON : 135, north street.
New York: E. & J. B. YOUNG & CO.
1893.

Richard Clay & Sons, Limited,
London & Bungay.

TO

flD^ fIDotber

WHOSE LIFE

WAS MY CONTINUAL HELP,

WHOSE DEAR MEMORY AND IMMORTAL LIFE

ARE MY INSPIRATION ALWAYS.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION

...

9

ST. PATRICK ...

...

!7

ST. COLUMBA

...

• 33

IONA AND ENGLAND :

ST. AIDAN

...

. 165

ST. HILDA

...

• 193

ST. COLMAN

...

. 213

ST. CHAD

...

226

ST. CUTHBERT

...

• 237

MISSIONS OF IRELAND AND ENGLAND

IN EUROPE :

ST. COLUMBAN

...

• 251

ST. BONIFACE, APOSTLE OF GERMANY

...

• 3°9

ST. MARGARET, QUEEN OF SCOTLAND

...

• 353

CONCLUSION ...

...

• 4i5

" II y a dans l'Europe, a sept lieues de la France, en
vue de nos plages du nord, un peuple dont l'empire est plus
vaste que celui d'Alexandre ou des Cesars, et qui est a la
fois le plus libre et le plus puissant, le plus riche et le plus
viril, le plus audacieux et le plus regie qui soit au monde.
Aucun peuple n'offre une etude aussi instructive, un aspect
aussi original, des contrastes aussi etranges. . . .

Aussi mobile que pas un dans ses affections et ses
jugements, mais sachant presque toujours se contenir et
s'arreter a temps, il est doue a la fois d'une initiative que
rien n'etonne et d'une perseverance que rien n'abat. Avide
de conquetes et de decouvertes il erre et court aux extremites
de la terre, puis revient plus £pris que jamais du foyer
domestique, plus jaloux d'en assurer la dignite et la duree
seculaire. Ennemi implacable de la contrainte, il est
l'esclave volontaire de la tradition et de la discipline libre-
ment acceptee, ou d'un prejuge' he'reditairement transmis.
Nul peuple n'a 6te plus souvent conquis, nul n'a su mieux
absorber et transformer ses conquerants.

Ni l'egoisme parfois sauvage de ces insulaires ni leur
indifference trop souvent cynique pour les douleurs et la
servitude d'autrui ne doivent nous faire oublier que la, plus
que partout ailleurs, l'homme s'appartient a lui-meme et
se gouverne lui-meme. C'est la que la noblesse de notre
nature a developpe toute sa splendeur et atteint son
niveau le plus eleve. C'est la que la passion genereuse de
l'independance, unie au genie de l'association, et a la pra-
tique constante de l'empire de soi, ont enfante ces prodiges
d'energie acharnee, d'indomptable vigueur, et d'heroisme
opiniatre qui ont triomphe des mers et des climats, du temps
et de la distance, de la nature et de la tyrannie, en excitant
la perpetuelle envie de tous les peuples, et l'orgueilleuse
enthousiasme des Anglais. Aimant la liberte pour elle-

8 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

meme, et n'aimant rien sans die, ce people ne doit Hen a
ses rois, qui n'ont 6t6 quelque chose que par lui et pour
lui. ... II sait vouloir et agir pour lui-meme ; gouvernant,
soulevant, inspirant ses grands hommes, au lieu d'etre
seduit, egare ou exploite par eux. Cette race anglaise a
succede a l'orgueil comme a la grandeur du peuple dont elle
est I'emule et l'he'ritiere, du peuple romain; j'entends les vrais
Rotnains de la Republique, non les vils Romains asservis et
depraves par Auguste. Comme les Romains envers leurs
tributaires, elle a 6t6 feroce et cupide envers l'lrlande,
infligeant aussi a sa victime, jusqu'en les derniers temps,
la servitude et l'abaissement qu'elle r^pudie avec horreur
pour elle-meme. . . Mais plus heureuse que Rome, apres
mille ans et plus elle est encore jeune et f^conde. Un
progres lent, obscur, mais ininterrompu lui a cre^ un fonds
inepuisable de force et de vie. Chez elle la seve debor-
dait hier et d^bordera demain. Plus heureuse que Rome,
malgre mille inconsequences, mille exces, mille souillures,
elle est de toutes les races modernes, et de toutes les
nations chr&iennes celle qui a le mieux conserve les trois
bases fondamentales de toute societe digne de l'homme :
l'esprit de liberte, l'esprit de famille et l'esprit religieux.

Comment cette nation, ou survit et triomphe un orgueil tout
paien, et qui n'en est pas moins restee jusqu'au sein de l'erreur
la plus religieuse de toutes les nations de l'Europe, comment
est elle devenue chre'tienne ? Comment et par quelles mains
le christianisme y a-t-il jete de si indestructibles racines?
Question capitale, a coup sur, parmi les plus capitales de
l'histoire, et dont l'interet delate et redouble quand on songe
que de la conversion de l'Angleterre a dependu et depend
encore la conversion de tant de million d'ames.

Le christianisme Anglais a &£ le berceau du christianisme
de I'Allemagne; des missionaires formes par les Anglo-
Saxons ont porte' la foi en Scandinavie et chez les Slaves,
et chaque jour k l'heure qu'il est, soit par la feconde ex-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 9

pansion de l'orthodoxie irlandaise, soit par l'impulsion
obstinde de la propagande protestante, il se cree des chre-
tiente's qui parlent anglais et vivent a l'anglaise dans toute
l'Amerique du nord, dans les deux Indes, dans l'immense
Australie, et dans les iles de l'ocean Pacifique. C'est presqu'
une moitie du monde dont le christianisme decoale' 011
decoulera de la source qui a jailli sur le sol britannique." —
Montalembert, Moi?ies de V Occident, F. III. ch. i.

INTRODUCTION.

The well-known and magnificent tribute to
our country from M. de Montalembert, which I
have quoted as an Introduction to these pages, in
which the most sympathetic appreciation is made
more emphatic through being tempered by regret
and blame, begins with these words — "There is
in Europe, seven leagues from France, in sight
of our northern shores, a people of which the
Empire is vaster than that of Alexander or of
the Caesars, and which is at once the most free
and the most powerful, the richest and the most
manly, the most daring and the most regulated
in the world. No people presents a study so
instructive, an aspect so original, contrasts so
strange. Happier than Rome, after a thousand

io EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

years and more she is still young and still fertile.
With her the living sap overflowed yesterday,
and will overflow to-morrow. In spite of a
thousand inconsistencies, stains, excesses, she, of
all modern races, of all Christian nations, is the
one that hast best preserved the three funda-
mental bases of all society worthy of man — the
spirit of liberty, the spirit of the family, the
spirit of religion.

"The question how the Christianity which has
struck such indestructible roots was planted, by
what hands, and in what way, is among the most
capital questions of history. ... It is well-
nigh half the world, of which the Christianity
flows and will flow from the fountain which has
sprung up on the soil of Britain."

"No country presents a study so instructive, an
aspect so original, contrasts so strange" — "still
young and fertile after more than a thousand
years." And how much of the interest of this
study, this individuality of character, the vivid-
ness of these contrasts, the secret of this inex-
haustible youth springs from the fact that we
are not one, but three : three, and yet one — Tria
juncta in Uno ! With at least three original
sources, — however in remoter antiquity the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. u

streams may again be seen to blend in one, —
with three national histories distinct and often
fiercely antagonistic, yet continually interact-
ing and reuniting with each other ; three national
characters distinct as national characters well
can be, and therefore able to supplement each
other as only contrasted characters can ; set
apart from the rest of the world in what were
virtually for long periods, through divisions of
mountains, and rivers and seas, three separate
islands; yet linked to each other irrevocably
as none else could be, anr1 all separated from
the mainland of Europe. The many mis-
understandings and oppressions with which we
have too often weakened and impoverished each
other have never been able entirely to spoil
the unity in diversity which made us strong to
confront the world, and to enrich it. The differ-
ences which make us distinct can never be
obliterated, and none of us would wish it. Not
" like in like, but like in difference," is the key-
note of all fruitful union. It is this free play
of many forces, this crossing of many currents,
which keeps the national life fresh and fertile.
We cannot abandon the hope that the great
national qualities which make the differences may

12 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

more and more interact, so as to supplement and
not to maim each other. And it seems as if few
things could better contribute to such an aim
than to live for a time in an age when the
qualities of the various races did thus actually
work together, and in rotation, through the power
of Christian faith and charity, each for the infinite
good of the rest.

There was an age when these nations recipro-
cated the priceless gifts of Christianity with each
other. And it is on this we will look now ; it is this
age which I wish to picture in these pages. The
story of the Missions of Ireland to Scotland, and
through Scotland to England ; of Scotland to
England, from Northumbria to Dorsetshire ;
of England to Saxony ; and again to Scotland.
These Missions are incarnate in great Mission-
aries, in Saints of the most original and varied
and typically national characters, and many of
them have the advantage of contemporary, or
almost contemporary, biography. There are the
Missions of St. Columba to and from Iona ;
of St. Columban in Burgundy and Italy, and of
St. Gall in Switzerland ; the Missions of St.
Aidan, St. Cuthbert, St. Chad, and St. Columba
from Scotland, from St. Columba's Iona, to Eng-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 13

land ; and finally the Missions of the Devonshire
St. Boniface to Saxony ; and of Margaret, Saint
and Queen, sister of Edgar Atheling and wife of
Malcolm Canmore, among her husband's people.

Tria juncta in Uno. The three have been
joined in one, for endless benediction to each
other and the world. Unconsciously, sometimes
reluctantly, through all the subsequent misunder-
standings and strifes, they have no doubt through
Divine over-ruling still worked together, even
during the discords of centuries. May it yet
be that each and all of us may work harmoni-
ously and consciously together ; trying to com-
prehend each other in the Presence and the
Light of the Christ who comprehends us all. of
the Christianity which is adequate for us all.

The story naturally begins, as it happens, with
the Missions of the nation which since those early
days has, through the confusions and collisions
of conflicting interests, secular and ecclesiastical,
had least opportunity of showing as a nation,
on the field of history, the brilliant intellectual
gifts, the lofty moral qualities, the intense spiritual
force and intuition manifested in those times.

The initiative in those early missions is with
Ireland.

ST. PATRICK.

ST. PATRICK.

I.

We might begin with St. Columba, the first

great Irish Missionary. But to understand St.

Columba we must go back to the world he was

born in, the Christianity he was trained in, the

world St. Patrick had so much to do with

moulding, the Christianity he had so large a

part in translating for Ireland. We all know of

course that

"St. Patrick was a gentleman,
And born of decent people."

But where he was born, who these very respectable
parents were, have been points much in dispute.
The existence and mighty influence of St.
Patrick could not be doubted, but his biographies
seemed for some time in a very liquid state,
liable therefore to be evaporated into shifting
clouds of legend, or frozen into capital for the
various sections of ecclesiastical conviction.

EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

But there are few things more encouraging
than the restoration to the region of fact, by
patient investigation, of many stories which had
been languidly relegated to a kind of religious
fairyland. In history, as elsewhere, it is laziness
which is destructive. Really " honest doubt "
means earnest inquiry; means belief that truth
exists, and is to be found. The question of
fastidious or cynical sceptics, " What is Truth ? "
which wins no reply from the lips of the Truth
Himself, is very different from the question,
" What is true?"

The Nineveh and Babylon, Egypt and Assyria
of our own times are substantial and living indeed
compared with the dreamy haze or the dry letters
which they meant a hundred years ago. And so
with St. Patrick and many of the Saints. They
had become dim " shades " in a dim world where
it is always twilight. Their very names are
scarcely to be found in manv ecclesiastical
histories, any more than those of Jack the Giant-
Killer or the Seven Champions of Christendom.
They are respectfully laid to rest in books of
devotional edification, where the lesson is as
derivable from allegory as from fact. Especially
this has been the case with St. Patrick. There

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 19

has been such a wide growth of legend around
his story as to choke the story. And in stripping
away the legend, you are apt to make a mere
antiquarian skeleton of the story. As with the
carefully cleared palaces and baths in modern
Rome, you are apt, after the clearing, to feel as
if you were in a mere museum of antiquities,
instead of on the actual sites of great events, and
in the real homes of men once living. It requires
a greater effort of imagination to recall the old life
among those swept floors, those clean, bare walls,
than when they were veiled and decorated by
the luxuriant leaves and flowers.

The destruction of the beauty has left us only
the bricks. The old palaces were real; the work
of Time and Nature was real, but this antiquarian
clearing leaves you, it almost seems, face to face,
neither with history nor Nature, but with ruin.
And yet the clearing is necessary for the mere
preservation of the ruin. The work of the
antiquarian and of the critic are of course
necessary to history, necessary and fruitful if
only regarded as the first step. The blending
of garden and ruin, of tree and shrub, rooted in
the crumbling stones, and enriching them with
flowers, was once a whole, a new creation, beau-

EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

tiful in itself, with bowers of greenery, where love
could dream and children play. But when all
this is cleared away, and the work of knife and
axe are done, historical imagination takes posses-
sion, and you have a living whole again. The
ancient halls and palace chambers stand out once
more peopled as of old.

And happily in historical investigation the
critical axe and knife destroy neither the bricks
nor the flowers, neither the fact nor the legend.
The fact, the biography, the human life are there :
the legendary stories which grew out of the power
and exuberance of its life are also there ; also, in a
sense historical, witnessing to the power and rich-
ness of the life, on which they fed. With St.
Patrick the co-operation of criticism and his-
torical imagination seems to have been especially
reconstructive.

To begin with, he is Ireland's St. Patrick,
related to his country as scarcely any other
Patron Saint. England has transferred her
allegiance from her martyr St. Alban to St.
George and his dragon myth ; Scotland had
recourse to very solid ground among the Apostles.
But Ireland never strayed from her first allegiance,
and is therefore quite at home with her Saint.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 2!

Neither England nor Scotland ever dreamt of
taking the affectionate filial liberties with their
Patrons, which are ventured on by " Pat," or
" Paddy from Cork."

St. Andrew, of course, belongs to all Christen-
dom as well as to Scotland ; and England having
lost hold of her own martyred St. Alban, fell into
very wild country, in Cappadocia. But Ireland
herself is at once the theatre and the trophy of
her own Saint. He belongs to her altogether, as
she to him.

Antiquarians may perplex themselves with
seven St. Patricks ; the Irish nation, with true
national instinct, has but one. Whoever else
may have aided him in her service before he
came to Ireland, or while he lived there, or after
he had died there, — however much others may
have seemed his equals while they were near, in
the perspective of the centuries the little hills
are lowered, and the real mountains tower to
their true height. St. Patrick indeed belongs
altogether to Ireland, and she to him.

And yet she owes him to the other island, and
so the circle of the electric current is complete.
You may take its beginning at one point or
another. From Britain to Ireland the vivifying

22 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

stream flows — from Ireland to Scotland, and from
Scotland to England, and from England again to
Scotland.

It is sometimes possible to reconstruct much
of the character of the artist from his works.
But with St. Patrick we are not left to prove his
existence by the work he left behind him, or
by the devotion of the nation which owed its
Christianity to him. We have two writings of
his own, admitted to be genuine, the Confession,
and his Epistle to Coroticus, in the Library of
Trinity College, Dublin. There is a manuscript
of the Confession, more than a thousand years
old, which professes to have been taken from an
autograph of St. Patrick himself.

Of St. Patrick's Confession his biographer, Dr.
Todd, writes': — " It is altogether such an account
of himself as a missionary of that age, circum-
stanced as St. Patrick was, might be expected to
compose. The Latinity is rude and archaic ; it
quotes the Ante-Hieronymic Vulgate ; and con-
tains nothing inconsistent with the century in
which it professes to have been written. If it be
a forgery it is not easy to imagine with what
purpose it could have been forged." To this
the Rev. G. T. Stokes (in Smith's Dictionary of

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 23

Christian Biography) adds : — " This is strong
testimony, but it might have been made stronger,
and applies as clearly to the Epistle to Coroticus
as to the Confession.

"There are two other lines (besides the archaic
character of the language and the quotation from
the evensong before the Vulgate) which seem to
be conclusive as to the early date of the Con-
fession— the State organization and the ecclesi-
astical organization thereon implied. These are
both such as existed in the beginning of the
fifth century, and could scarcely have been
imagined afterwards. Let us take the State
organization first. In the Epistle to Coroticus
he describes himself thus — ' Ingenuus fui
secundum carnem : Decurione patre nascor.'

" Recent investigations into the antiquities of
the Roman Empire show that Decurions, who
are not magistrates, but councillors and members
of the local Senate, were found all over the
Roman Empire to its extremest bounds by the
end of the fourth century.

"Again, the Confession speaks of England as
1 the Britanniae ' (in the plural), in accordance
with the technical usage at the close of the
fourth century, which divides Britain into five

24 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Britanniae. Then again, ecclesiastical organiza-
tion is such as the date 400 also would
supply.

"St. Patrick tells us in the opening words of
the Confession that his father was Calpurnius, a
deacon; his grandfather, Potitus, a priest. It
is evident that the law of compulsory clerical
celibacy was unknown to him, whilst it is also clear
that a monastic life was popular." (Or if this were
questioned, it seems clear that such a clerical
descent would not have been invented at a sub-
sequent date.) " Again, the aspect of the political
world is such as corresponds with the alleged date.
In the Epistle to Coroticus, Patrick says it is the
custom of the Roman Gallic Christians to send
holy men fitted for the work, to the Franks and
other nations, with many thousand solidi to
redeem baptized captives. But by the end of
the fifth century the Franks had been converted.
Clovis, King of the Franks, was the one orthodox
sovereign of Christendom. The redemption of
Christian captives among the heathen Franks
would therefore no longer now be needed. This
passage could only have been written in the
middle of the fifth century at latest. These
instances will show how capable St. Patrick's

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 25

own writings are of standing the test of modern
historical criticism." 1

And so we may take St. Patrick for granted,
and endeavour to learn what he was, and said and
did. If, as some think probable, he was born at
Kirkpatrick, near Dumbarton, on the Clyde, his
early days must have been spent among the
creeks and inlet rocks and mountains not far
from the scene of St. Columba's labours, a
hundred years afterwards. But if this is dis-
proved, it is at all events clear that he was born
in some part of Britain. His family were Gallo-
Roman. Montalembert accepts the tradition
which connects them with St. Martin of Tours.
All these interlinkings with different lands indi-
cate that the Roman Empire, shattered as it was,
still gave a kind of unity to Europe.

St. Patrick's father, then, was a Roman De-
curion — a man of influence in the local govern-
ment so wonderfully organized by Rome. He
was also a man of landed property. St. Patrick
was brought up on his father's farm. " I,
Patrick, a sinner," he writes, in the Confession ;
"the rudest, and least of all the faithful, and the

1 Rev. G. T. Stokes, in Smith's Dictionary of Christian
Biography, and in Ireland and the Celtic Church.

26 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

most despicable among most men, had for my
father, Calpurnius, a deacon, son of the late
Potitus, a presbyter, who was of the town
Bonaven Taberniae, for he had a farm in its
neighbourhood."

Personally he would humble himself in the
dust; but to be a "gentleman, and born of
decent people," was an advantage it was due to
his kindred not to conceal, especially as those
early prospects were so soon darkened. And he
certainly has succeeded in impressing the fact
upon posterity.

Civil and ecclesiastical dignities were combined
in his family. Professor Stokes gives us other
instances of this from inscriptions at Ancyra, and
Assos in Asia Minor. The Decurions were
clothed with the authority of the Empire, " had
charge of the games, water-supply, sanitary
arrangements, education, local fortifications." As
deacons and presbyters, they must have also ruled
and served the Church.

From what he says, however, in his Con-

Jession, his own life was not moved early by

Christian teaching. " We had gone back from

His commandments," he writes, " and had not

been obedient to our priests, who used to warn

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 27

us for our salvation. And the Lord brought
upon us the wrath of His displeasure, and
scattered us among many nations."

He lived on his father's property until he was
sixteen ; and then came one of those piratical
raids on the sea-coast so terribly common during
those centuries of decay and violence and migra-
tion ; and the boy was carried to the opposite
coast of Ireland. He became one of the slaves
of Milchu, King of the Dalriads, then the most
powerful kingdom in the north-east of Ireland,
extending from Newry in County Down, to the
mountain of Slemish in Antrim. Tradition still
marks the spot where he herded the King's swine,
on a farm called Ballyligpatrick — " the town
of the hollow of Patrick " — near the village of
Broughshane, five or six miles east of Ballymena.

Thousands, he says, were taken captive about
the same time. And there, at that farm in the
hollow of the Antrim hills, the spiritual history
of St. Patrick seems to have begun. The King
of that country sent him into the fields to keep
swine ; and there, among the acorns and husks
of the ancient oak forests, he woke to find he
had been feeding his soul on husks, and need do
so no more.

28 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

While feeding his swine on the acorns on
which they could feed, he awoke to the discovery
that for him there was indeed a Father watching,
while he had been still afar off, and waiting to
bless ; a Father's Home and bread of immortal
life close at hand, "enough ~nd to spare." "I
knew not the true God," he w..tes. "And there
the Lord opened the sense of my unbelief, that
even though late " (it seemed late to him, though
he was only sixteen), " I should remember my
sin, and be converted with my whole heart to
the Lord my God, who had regard to my lone-
liness, and had compassion on my youth and my
ignorance, and preserved me before I knew, and
before I could distinguish between good and
evil, and protected me and comforted me as a
father would a son."

All the Christian teaching of his early years,
dormant till then, blossomed in his heart. In
captivity his spirit found freedom ; the moun-
tain and oaks and forest glades became a home
and a temple to him. He writes his story, he
says, "to spread confidence in God among his
brothers in Gaul and Britain and his sons
in Ireland." And beautiful and inspiring the
story is, and fresh to us to-day as to his

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 29

brothers and sons fourteen hundred years
ago.

"When I came to Ireland, I used daily to
keep the cattle, and often every day to pray ; and
the fear and the love of God were ever more and
more increased in me, and my faith increased, so
that in the day I spake a hundred times in prayer,
and in the nights often ; and even when I passed the
night on the mountains, and in the forests, amidst
snow, and frost, and rain, I would watch before
daylight to pray, and I felt no discomfort. There
was then no laziness such as I find in my heart
now, for the spirit was ever burning within me."

Picture the bright young boy, with the swine
grubbing and grunting around him, among the
brushwood and the roots of the old oaks, or
under the snows, face to face with Nature in
her wild solitude, braving cold and hunger, and
perils day and night, and meantime not merely
dreaming of heaven and the future, but herding
his cattle faithfully to the best pastures ; all the
while leading the common life of servitude and
toil and hardship, yet all the while also heaven
open to him, and his free and royal spirit walking
about its golden streets, conversing as a child
with his Father in heaven.

3o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

What a training for his future, learning to
share the common toils of common men, proving
the power of soul over circumstance, learning
through and above all to " know the true God ! "

This lasted six years, from his sixteenth year
till he was twenty-two, long enough to engrave
the lessons deep on heart and mind.

After six years he heard in a dream a voice
which said, 4° Thy fasting is well, thou shalt soon
return to thy country."

And again in another dream the same voice
told him the ship was ready for him two hundred
miles away. There is much of dreams and
visions and heavenly voices in St. Patrick's
life, and openings into mysterious regions, re-
minding one of the histories of the early Friends
and Methodists.

He obeyed that voice and fled from his
captivity. " I went in the power of the Lord,"
he writes, "who directed my way for good,
and I feared nothing till I arrived at that ship."
The captain, however, roughly refused him a
passage ; but Patrick prayed, and his prayer
was not finished, when one of the sailors called
to him to come back quickly, " for these men
call thee."

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 31

They were three clays at sea. It sounds more
like a voyage in the far-off Pacific than in the
Irish Channel; but no doubt the Irish Channel
was a perilous voyage to the small craft of those
days. It is perilous enough around the coasts
of Cornwall now, and among the wreck-strewn
channels between the Scilly Islands. They were
three days at sea, and afterwards twenty-eight
days in " a desert place/' till their provisions ran
short. Then the leader of the party said to him,
" What sayest thou, Christian ? Thy God is great
and all-powerful; why then canst thou not pray
to Him for us ? for we perish with hunger and
can find no inhabitant."

Patrick answered —

"Turn ye in faith to my Lord God, to whom
nothing is impossible, and He will send you
food, and ye shall be satisfied, for He has
abundance everywhere."

And a herd of swine soon after appeared, of
which they killed many. They found also some
wild honey. But because some of them had
said, "This is an offering, thank God," Patrick
would not taste of it, fearing that it had been
offered to an idol.

But in the midst of his voyages and adventures

32 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

his spirit went on her own voyages in the spiritual
world.

"That same night," he says, "an event
occurred which I could never forget. I felt
as if a great stone had fallen on me. I was
unable to move a limb, but I called 'Helias'
with all my might." (Probably an allusion to
the " Eli, Eli I" on the Cross.) "How it came
into my mind, I know not, but lo! the bright-
ness of the sun fell upon me, and straightway
removed all the weight, and I am persuaded I
was relieved by Christ my Lord, and that His
Spirit then cried out for me."

He was liberated from his slavery and captivity
in Ireland. But there were captivities also for
the spirit, and liberations. And such a liberation
into fresh power of light and love, that night
in the desert place seems to have brought to
him.

There is an inner history running parallel
with the outer life of St. Patrick's Confession—
the inner life more real than the outer — the
land of the true fountains and brooks, whence
the heroic achievement and steadfast work and
ever-growing love of the visible life were watered.
And there is a curious unusualness in the way

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 33

these inner experiences are related. He seems
to be making spiritual voyages of discovery, as
if no one had preceded him in regions since then
much mapped out in religious biography, just as,
in the body, he lighted on untrodden deserts,
even amidst the familiar waters of the Irish and
British Channels.

He seems to have spent the next years of his
life with his parents in England — (in one of the
Britanniae).

The Legends and Biographies vary in the story
of this interval between his liberation from cap-
tivity and his missionary work in Ireland. In
his Confession he speaks only of being in
Britain. Montalembert, following some of the
biographers, mentions his resuming and finishing
his studies in the two greatest monasteries of the
West — Marmoutier near Marseilles, and the Isle
of Lerins ; his accompanying St. Germain of
Auxerre to Great Britain to oppose the Pelagian
heresy. He speaks of himself in the Confession as
"ignorant, slow of speech, rustic, a fugitive, and
moreover unlearned." " Hear, then, and inquire
who has stirred me up, who am a fool, out of the
midst of those who are esteemed wise. It was
God, provided that, if I were worthy, I should

34 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

during my life faithfully labour with fear and
reverence, without murmuring, for the good of
the nation to which the love of Christ transferred
and gave me ; in fine, that I should serve them
with humility and truth."

But the most significant moment in those
years was that which he records in his Confes-
sion ; another event in his spiritual history which
was the inspiration of what he was and did.
" There " (while in the Britanniae, with his parents)
" in the dead of night I saw " (in a dream, or
vision, as recorded of St. Paul in the Acts) " a
man coming unto me as if from Hiberio " (his
name for Ireland), "whose name was Victoricus,
bearing innumerable epistles. And he gave me
one of them, and I read the beginning of it,
which contained the words, ' The voice of the
Irish.' And while I was repeating the beginning
of the epistle, I imagined that I heard in my
mind the voice of those who were near the
Wood of Fochlut, which is near the Western
Sea. And thus they cried — ' We pray thee,
holy youth, to come and henceforth ivalk amongst
us.' And I was greatly pricked in heart, and
could read no more, and so I awoke. Thanks
be to God that after very many years the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 35

Lord granted unto them according to their
cry."

This must have been soon after his liberation.
The preparation for his work in Gaul and else-
where may have filled up the many subsequent
years, which seem to have been years of much
trial and many hardships.

But in the hidden life lay the inspiration and
the explanation of the act. It seems probable
to those who have weighed the evidence carefully,
that St. Patrick may have learned much from
the great monastic institutions of Gaul, that he
may have accompanied St. Germain of Auxerre
and St. Loup on the Mission to England, which
has left traces in the names of churches in Corn-
wall and Wales. Himself the son of a Roman
official, and linked with a Romano-Gallic family,
there can be nothing incredible in his having
visited Rome, the Rome of the martyrs, and
having there received sympathy and sanction
from Pope Celestine for the Mission to the far-
off island the Roman Empire had never annexed
or touched. These external historical links give
solidity to the deeper history within. But there
is no allusion to them in his own writings.

To him the years of captivity in the flesh were

36 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

years of liberation in the spirit. It was among
the swine and in the wild forests that his eyes
were opened to the heavenly vision. And after
his liberation his heart was opened to the sorrows
and needs of the heathen people around him.
Their needs touched him, and his life had reached
them. " The voice of the Irish " never died out
of his heart. The cry of the needy was to him
the call of God.

It is not so much the circumstances as the
conquest of circumstances which give the especial
interest to the life of St. Patrick, as indeed of all
the Saints ; since saintliness, whatever else it
means, must mean victory over the peculiar
temptations of the society in which the Saint
lives. Herding swine might have assimilated
him to the swine; it did help to assimilate him
to the angels. Slavery might have enslaved his
spirit ; it did bring liberation to his spirit, intro-
ducing him to the Heavenly City, " which is free
and the Mother of us all ; " to the Son, who makes
those He liberates " free indeed." Return to pros-
perity from hardship and bondage might have
led him to prize more than ever the ease and
pleasures he had lost and found again ; it did
give him leisure to enter more deeply than before

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 37

into the sufferings of those still in the bonds
of slavery, and the harder bonds of ignorance
and sin.

It is significant for Ireland, with her centuries
of oppression and wrong, to have as her Patron
Saint one from whom wrongs drew not resentment
but sympathy, who by the power of the Cross
transmuted the bitter waters into sweet, and
curse into blessing.

II.

The two things we naturally want to know of
the great Irish Missionary are, what St. Patrick
found in Ireland, and what he brought to it. It
is a country whose literature, like its history, seems
sometimes a confused scene of factions and contra-
dictions. There is the dispute as to how much
Christianity had reached Ireland before St. Patrick,
and from what source. There is the dispute as
to the pagan customs he found, and the ecclesias-
tical customs he left. There are the disputes as
to how many Patricks there were, whether not
rather seven than one, and how much is to be
attributed to St. Patrick's forerunner, Palladium
But the very heat and confusion of the anti-

38 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

quarian battle seems to bring out in stronger
relief the one personality about whom the whole
of the conflicting historians, and contending
races, and controversial theologians gather with
exceptional unanimity.

In one thing Ireland was undeniably distinct
from the rest of Europe, as St. Patrick knew it, —
Rome, in the days of her earlier empire, or in the
corruption of the later, had never held sway over
it. There were no traces of the vast network of
the Roman roads, linking the remotest frontiers
to the Imperial City; no trace of that wonderful
organization with which Patrick as the son of a
Decurion must have been familiar. What he
found in Ireland belonged to Ireland herself.
The forms of social organization he found seem
to have been the influential Druid priesthood;
and the family organization of chieftains and
septs common to the Celtic nations. His mode of
dealing with these forms of social life seems to
have been not to destroy, but as far as possible
to Christianize and to use.

The Druids were the priests and poets, and
lawyers and historians, and men of letters of the
race. These St. Patrick always sought to win to
Christianity, and in a great measure succeeded.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 39

The schools of the Bards grew into the schools
of the monasteries ; the songs and music of the
Bards soared upward in Christian hymns; their
Irish harp has become and has remained the
symbol of Catholic Christian Ireland. In the
biographies and legends, St. Patrick's mission
always begins with the Bards and the Chieftains,
the Kings and the Druids.

A sense of the solidity of his life grows out of
the various allegories and dramatic episodes of
the legends as we trace his voyages and travels
through familiar places, many of them still
stamped with his name, or linked with some
unbroken local tradition of his presence.

We may leave the miracles of vengeance to the
writers of the legends ; but the miracle of faith
and charity remains. We may pass by the
cursing of rivers that yielded him no fish ; but
the rivers remain, if not the fish, with names still
to be recognized. The pagans of Wicklow are
said to have received him with showers of stones,
and the river Vartry, where he is said to have
first stepped on shore, still supplies Dublin with
water. But the first point we need pause at is the
river Slaney, which flows into the south-western
creek of Strangford Lough in County Down.

40 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

It is characteristic that the first place he sought
out, was the place of his captivity in the land of
the Dalriads, the country of Milchu, his former
master. On his way to Antrim he landed, and
left his boat at the mouth of the river Slaney.
It is a curious coincidence that the first man he
met on landing, where he himself had herded
King Milchu's swine, was a swineherd, who fled
at the approach of the strangers, taking them
for pirates, and called his master Dichu the
chieftain of the district to help him. The
chieftain received the strangers hospitably, and
became Patrick's first convert. With him how-
ever Patrick only stayed a few days, hastening on
to the oak woods where he had herded the swine,
and the sides of the basaltic hill of Slemish,
where he had camped out in the snow and rain,
and where his spirit had learned to tread the
heavenly paths. (There, says one of the bio-
graphers, in the familiar oak woods he suddenly
beheld the house of his master King Milchu in
flames. Milchu, in terror and despair at the
approaching revenge of his former slave, having
set his house on fire intentionally, rushed into the
flames, whereupon, says the legend, St. Patrick
prophesied that his sons should be slaves for

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 41

ever: an example of the curious way in which
some of the biographers seem entirely to mis-
understand the whole purpose and meaning of
the Saint's life.) From Antrim, Patrick returned
to his friend, the chieftain Dichu, who granted
him a barn with land around, which became
Patrick's first Church in Ireland, called Sabhol
or Saul, two miles from Down Patrick. But
Patrick did not live in Antrim ; he resolved to
strike at the heart of the enemy's position, Tara,
the chief seat of King Laoghaire, " Tara's halls/'
where the harps of the poets used to hang, and
the Irish Parliament, or Legislative Assembly, met.

u The Feis of Tara every third year
To preserve laws and Rules
Was then regularly convened
By the illustrious Kings of Erin."

The track of Patrick to Tara can be traced by
the mouth of the Boyne, where he laid up his
boats, the river not being navigable, to the lofty
hill of Slane, twelve miles from the lower royal
hill of Tara, with its forts and large wooden halls,
which could be seen across the broad plain or
Meath.

There, on the high hill of Slane, Patrick dared

42 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

to light the sacred fire on Easter Eve in challenge
to the heathen priests.

To the period of this conflict with the Druids
at Tara is assigned the famous Hymnus Scoticu.s,
long, it is said, sung by the peasants at bed-time
as a breastplate (Lorica) against evil. A finer
invocation of the Divine Presence everywhere
and at all times is scarcely to be found. The
forms of evil and hostility which it deprecates
are also such as belong especially to the time.
And unlike the Druid in the Legend, it seeks to
overcome evil not with evil, but with good.

(i) I bind to myself to-day,

The strong power of the invocation of the

Trinity,
The faith of the Trinity in Unity,
The Creator of the elements.

(2) I bind to myself to-day,

The power of the incarnation of Christ

with that of His Baptism,
The power of the Crucifixion, with that of
His Burial,

1 Then ensues, in the Legend, a battle of marvels with
the Magicians, and earthquakes, and whirlwinds, and fire,
ending in the rout of the heathen.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 43

The power of the Resurrection with the

Ascension,
The power of the coming to the Sentence

of Judgment.

(3) I bind to myself to-day,

The power of the love of Seraphim,

In the obedience of Angels,

In hope of Resurrection unto reward,

In the prayers of the noble Fathers,

In the predictions of the Prophets,

In the preaching of Apostles,

In the faith of Confessors,

In the purity of Holy Virgins,

In the acts of Righteous Men.

(4) I bind to myself to-day,
The power of Heaven,
The light of the Sun,
The whiteness of Snow,
The force of Fire,

The flashing of Lightning,
The velocity of Wind,
The depth of the Sea,
The stability of the Earth,
The hardness of Rocks.

44 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

(5) I bind to myself to-day,

The Power of God to guide me,
The Might of God to uphold me,
The Wisdom of God to teach me,
The Eye of God to watch over me,
The Ear of God to hear me,
The Word of God to give me speech,
The Hand of God to protect me,
The Way of God to prevent me,
The Shield of God to shelter me,
The Host of God to defend me,
Against the snares of demons,
Against the temptations of vices,
Against the lusts of nature,
Against every man who meditates
injury to me,

Whether far or near,
With few or with many.

(6) I have set around me all these powers,
Against every hostile savage power
Directed against my body and my soul,
Against the incarnations of false prophets,
Against the black laws of heathenism,
Against the false laws of heresy,
Against the deceits of idolatry,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 45

Against the spells of women, and smiths,

and druids,
Against all knowledge which binds the

soul of man.

(7) Christ protect me to-day,
Against poison, against burning,
Against drowning, against wound,
That I may receive abundant reward.

(8) Christ with me, Christ before me,
Christ behind me, Christ within me,
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ at my right, Christ at my left.
Christ in the fort,

Christ in the chariot-seat,
Christ in the poop.

(9) Christ in the heart of every man who

thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of every man who

speaks to me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.

(10) I bind to myself to-day,

The strong power of an invocation of the
Trinity,

46 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

The faith of the Trinity in Unity,
The Creator of the elements.

(n) Domini est salus,
Domini est salus,
Christi est salus,
Salus tua Domine sit semper nobiscum.

The conflict between the Druids of Tara and
St. Patrick is said to terminate in the victory of
St. Patrick, the defeat of Paganism, and the
baptism of a large number of Irish, among them
of King Laoghaire, whose conversion however
seems to have been very external, since he chose
to be buried on the outer rampart of Tara, " with
his face turned southwards towards the men of
Leinster, as fighting with them, for he was the
enemy of the Leinster men all his life." After
his death, his son said to Patrick, "My father
did not permit me to believe, but commanded
that he should be buried on the ramparts of
Tara, as men stand up in battle, for the Gentiles
are wont to be buried in their sepulchres armed,
with weapons ready, face to face."

On the other hand, at Telltown, ten miles north
of Tara, Laoghaire's younger brother, Conall Mac
Neil, received Patrick with great joy in his own

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 47

house, and was baptized, and gave him the site
of a church sixty feet long, " for the God of
Patrick." And there is to this day a church at
Telltown, rebuilt in the days of the Georges, but
still sixty feet long. At Telltown are still to be
seen the remains of the great rath of the chieftains ;
and at Tara, the earthwork where the kings enter-
tained the great gathering of the clans and people ;
and also the wells where Patrick baptized his
new Christians may still be traced.

Some of the chieftains, especially Ere of the
royal lineage, called a Magus or Druid, who only
rose to pay honour to Patrick in the assembly at
Tara, were genuine converts.

In the story of Erc's baptism, it is told how
St. Patrick said to him, "Why didst thou alone
rise up in honour of my God ? " And Ere said,
"Why, I know not — I see sparks of fire going
from thy lips to mine." Then the Saint said to
him, "Wilt thou receive the baptism of the
Lord which I have with me ? " He answered,
" I will receive it."

And being come to the fountain of Loigles

o o

(a well or fort of Tara), where he baptized many
thousand in that day, he heard one saying to
another, " I am Endeus, son of Amolgaid, from

48 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

the western regions, from the Wood of Fochlut."
Patrick rejoiced greatly when he heard the name
of the Wood of Fochlut ; for this was " the Wood
by the Western Sea," to which " the voice of
the Irish," the cry of the children, had called
him in his dream long ago. And to Connaught,
by the Western Sea, he went.

Seven sons of Amalgaidh are said by Tirechan
(writing early in the seventh century) to have
come to the Court of King Laoghaire to settle
a dispute about their inheritance. It was settled
that the inheritance should be divided among
the seven brothers, with the recognition of Endeus
the eldest as chief. St. Patrick set out to the
West with them, paying largely for the escort.

In his Confession he indignantly repels the
charge of taking money from his converts, and
says, " Nay ! I expended money for you as far
as I was able, and I went among you and every-
where for your sakes through many dangers,
even to those extreme regions beyond which no
man was (the shores of Connaught), and whither
no man had ever gone to baptize, or to ordain,
or to confirm the people there by the gift of the
Lord. I did all things diligently and most gladly
for your salvation. At the same time I gave

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 49

presents to the kings, besides the cost of keeping
their sons, who walked with me that they should
not seize me with my companions. And on
that day (in ilia die) they most eagerly desired
to kill me, but my time was not yet come ; yet
they plundered all they could find with us, and
bound me in irons. But on the fourteenth day
the Lord delivered me from their power, and
whatever was ours was restored to us, through
God, by the help of the close friends, whom we
had before provided. But you know how much
I expended on those who were judges, through-
out all the districts where I used most frequently
to visit. And I think I paid them the hire of
not less than fifteen men, that so you might
enjoy me, and that I might enjoy you in the
Lord. I do not repent of it, yea, it is not
enough for me ; I still spend and will spend more.
The Lord is mighty to give me more hereafter,
that I may expend myself for your sakes."

The spending, not the receiving, always the
first and last thought ; the reward of giving, to
have more to give ! This is a passage full of
suggestion. It makes it evident that the con-
quest of Ireland for Christ by Patrick was no
easily won field ; the perils of that journey to

50 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

the far West, from Druids and others, were great.
But this is the only instance of which he speaks
of them in his Confession. Again, his way
through Connaught can be traced by the moun-
tain of Cruagh Patrick, commanding Clew Bay
in the south of Mayo, where legend says he
banished from Ireland the serpents and toads and
demons who gathered round him like a flight of
crows darkening the skies. Thence he journeyed
northward to find the wood of his dream, the
Wood of Fochlut, between Killala and Ballymena
on the bay which borders Mayo and Sligo.

The legend which dramatizes his meeting with
the two daughters of King Laoghaire is con-
nected with Connaught.

St. Patrick comes to the well, and he and his
disciples sit down.

1 Then St. Patrick came to the well (adfontem)
which is called C/ebach, on the sides of Crochan
towards the east ; and before sunrise they (i. e.
Patrick and his followers) sat down near the

1 This story is told by Tirechan, in the Book of Armagh ,
quoted by Dr. Todd's Life of St. Patrick, and also by the
Rev. G. T. Stokes' Ireland and the Celtic Church. It bears
the marks, they say, of the highest antiquity.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 51

well. And lo ! the two daughters of King
Laoghaire, Ethne the fair {alba), and Fedelm
the ruddy (rufa), came early to the well, to wash,
after the manner of women, and they found near
the well a synod of holy Bishops with Patrick.
And they knew not whence they were, or in
what form, or from what people, or from what
country ; but they supposed them to be Duine
Sidhe, or gods of the earth, or a phantasm.
And the virgins said unto them, " Who are ye ?
and whence come ye ? " And Patrick said unto
them, " It were better for you to confess to our
true God, than to inquire concerning our race."

The first virgin said —

" Who is God ?

" And where is God ?

"And of what (nature) is God?

" And where is His dwelling-place ?

" Has your God sons and daughters, gold and
silver ?

" Is He ever-living ?

"Is He beautiful?

" Did many foster His Son ?

" Are His daughters dear and beauteous to
men of the world ?

" Is He in heaven or in earth ?

52 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

" In the sea r

" In rivers ?

" In mountainous places ?

" In valleys?

" Declare unto us the knowledge of Him.

" How shall He be seen ?

" How is He to be loved ?

" How is He to be found ?

" Is it in youth ?

" Is it in old age, that He is to be found ? "

But St. Patrick, full of the Holy Ghost,
answered and said —

" Our God is the God of all men.

" The God of heaven and earth, of the sea and
rivers.

" The God of the sun, the moon, and the stars.

"The God of the high mountains, and of the
lowly valleys.

"The God who is above heaven, and in
heaven, and under heaven.

" He hath a habitation in the heaven and the
earth and the sea, and all that are therein.

" He inspireth all things.

" He quickeneth all things.

" He is over all things.

" He sustained! all things.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 53

" He giveth light to the light of the sun.

"And He hath made springs in a dry ground,

" And dry islands in the sea,

"And hath appointed the stars to serve the
greater lights.

" He hath a Son co-eternal and co-equal (con-
similem) with Himself.

"The Son is not younger than the Father,

" Nor is the Father older than the Son,

" And the" Holy Ghost breatheth in them
(inflat in eis).

" The Father and the Son and the Holy
Ghost are not divided (iron separantur).

" But I desire to unite you to the Heavenly
King — inasmuch as you are the daughters of an
earthly King — to believe."

And the virgins said, as with one mouth and
one heart —

" Teach us most diligently how we may
believe in the Heavenly King. Show us how
we may see Him face to face; and whatsoever
thou shalt say unto us we will do."

And Patrick said —

" Believe ye that by baptism ye put off the
sin of your father and your mother ? " — They
answered, " We believe."

54 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

"Believe ye in repentance after sin ? " — "We
believe."

" Believe ye in life after death ? Believe ye
the resurrection at the Day of Judgment t " —
"We believe."

" Believe ye the Unity of the Church ? " —
"We believe."

And they were baptized ; and a white garment
put upon their heads. And they asked to see
the face of Christ. The Saint said unto them,
" Ye cannot see the face of Christ except ye taste
of death, and except ye receive the Sacrifice."

And they answered, " Give us the Sacrifice,
that we may behold the Son our Spouse."

And they received the Eucharist of God, and
they slept in death (dormierunt in morte), and
they were laid out on one bed, covered with
garments : and (their friends) made great lament-
ations and weeping for them.

Much discussion appears to have arisen about
this poem, as it might arise about many poems
— from those in the sacred Scriptures to Brown-
ing— seeing that the poets seem often to see
more than they can sing, and also to sing more
than they can explain.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 55

Among the points most seriously discussed,
appears to be whether the princesses committed
suicide, thus involving St. Patrick's approval of
human sacrifices.

But as a dramatic idyll how lovely it is ! — the
young princesses, like Nausicaa of old, coming
to wash at the well, rosy and fair in the light of
early dawn, wondering at the vision of the com-
pany of strangers, grave and still, gathered around
the well, wondering whether they are fairies or
phantoms. Then the fearless questioning, and
the answer opening their hearts to pour out all
the questions for ever in human hearts concern-
ing immortal life and God, and His relation to
man and how to find Him ; where He is, and
where He dwells; if He, unlike us, is deathless;
if He, like the best we can dream of, is beauti-
ful ; if He has daughters ; if He is in the seas
and the rivers, in the mountains and the valleys
— not limited to one place ; if He is one that
might be seen and loved and found ; and if to
be found indeed, how, and how soon ? must we
wait for that vision until we are old, or may the
young find and love Him ? And then the
simple answer of Patrick : that God dwelleth not
in heaven only, but in the earth, in the sea? in-

56 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

spiring all, giving life and light to all things ;
Himself the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost ; Himself love, desiring the love of man-
kind, the love of the two young maidens, if
they will believe.

And the maiden sisters, eagerly drinking in
the whole wonderful story, with one heart and
mouth reply, " Teach us diligently how we
may believe in the Heavenly King ; show Him
to us that we may see Him face to face." Then
they hear of sin and of washing it away ; of
immortal life, resurrection, and judgment, and of
a believing multitude, one Catholic undivided
Church. And, believing and rejoicing, they are
baptized, and the white veil is placed on their
heads, and they receive the Eucharist of God;
and they sleep side by side in death, which is
but the lying down to wake up again, and see
the King, the Spouse, face to face.

All the mission of St. Patrick seems enshrined
in this poem ; the purity and beauty of Irish
womanhood ; the simplicity and fearless frank-
ness of the maidens ; the quick perception of
spiritual truth ; the keen longing for spiritual
life ; the opening out of the fervent heart in
responsive love to the love of God ; the readiness

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 57

to die, to be with the Beloved in the life
beyond.

The share of women in the Christianizing of
Ireland is also remarkable and characteristic.
Side by side with the name of Patrick in the
tradition, rooted in the hearts of the Irish people,
is the name of Bridget, Bride, Brigid, virgin
Saint and Abbess ; she also a captive, daughter
of a captive, and a slave ; her life also a life of
victory over wrongs, of overcoming evil with good.

After patiently enduring hardships, and learn-
ing the lesson of bondage like St. Patrick —
learning to cook, and bake, and spin, and weave,
and tend the sheep, under a hard mistress — she
is set free to serve her Lord, and her country,
men and women, as a spiritual queen and abbess.
She gathers round her the suffering, takes the
captives to her heart, and saves them from cruel
bondage.1 Like St. Patrick, from her own

1 '('here is a story of her converting to Christianity the
wizard to whom she was in bondage, and his wife. The
wizard having become a Christian, sets her free. "Thou
shalt not be in bondage to me," he says; "serve thou the
Lord." He also gives her as her own the kine she used to
milk. " Take thou the kine," she says, "and give me my
mother's freedom." He gives her both, and she gives all to
the poor and needy.

58 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

wrongs she has learned, not resentment, but
boundless compassion and sympathy. The place
of honour assigned to her is almost the highest
of all. At her abbey of Kildare, innumerable
people — men and women — flock to her for
sympathy, and teaching, and healing. Her juris-
diction extends from sea to sea. From this
centre of Kildare, she travels continually about
the land, gathering communities of Christians
together. She seeks out a holy hermit to
become the bishop of her many flocks, and
thenceforth together — " he the anointed head of
all bishops, and she the most blessed chief of
all virgins" — they rule over the Christians of
Ireland.

Many wild legends have gathered about her.
But the sacred picture remains queenly and
gracious, — not to be effaced by all the painting
over or painting out, — of the captive maiden
taking the captives to her heart ; by her faith,
and patience, and wisdom, lifting up womanhood
throughout her country ; reigning and serving ;
singing to her harp the praises of God in the
royal hall at Tara ; gathering the wretched and
wronged and suffering around her, not to heal
and succour only, but to make of them also

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 59

healers, succourers, and centres of light to all
around. The fervour of the warm wide Irish
heart glows through the hymn attributed to her.

" I would a lake of hydromel for the King of
kings.

" I would that all the people of heaven should
drink of it for ever.

" I would the viands of faith and piety, and
also instruments of penitence in my House.

" I would have my House full of men of
heaven.

" I would great cups of charity to distribute.

" I would cellars full of graces for my com-
panions.

" I would that joy should be given at the
banquet.

" I would that Jesus, Jesus Himself should
reign over it.

" I would that the three Marys of illustrious
memory, and that all the spirits should be
gathered here from all parts.

" I would be the steward of the Lord, and at
the cost of a thousand sufferings receive His
blessing.

" I would a lake of hydromel for the King of
kings.

60 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

" I would that all the people of heaven should
drink of it for ever."

In the story of St. Patrick we cannot leave out
the legend of the holy woman whose name lives
beside his.

The last things told of her in reference to
Patrick, whom she survived some years, are two
prophecies. One was of the period of declension
and darkness which was to succeed their own era
of light and victory, " four ploughs of destruc-
tion " which were to mar the work of his " four
sacred ploughs of the four Gospels," with which
he had made the land fruitful. The other was of
the approaching death of Patrick, whose shroud
she prepared and embroidered.

III.

After the seven years of St. Patrick's missions
in Connaught, there are legends of seven years
in Munster. The legends abound in parallels of
numbers. To these legends of Munster belongs
the story of the King of Munster, whose foot, at
his baptism, Patrick inadvertently pierced with
the sharp end of his crosier. The King, imagin-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 61

ing that this was a necessary part of the baptismal
rite, endured the torture without allowing himself
the slightest expression of pain.

At this point may be placed the story of the
Chieftain Daire, which belongs to Ulster and
Armagh.1

"There was a certain rich and honourable man
in the regions of the Orientals, whose name was
Daire. Him St. Patrick desired to give unto
him a place for the exercise of religion {ad exer-
cendam religionem). And the rich man said
unto the Saint, ' What place askest thou ? ' 'I
ask,' said the Saint, ' that thou give me that
height of land which is called Dorsum Salicis,
and there I will build a place.' But he would
not give that high land to the Saint ; he gave
him however another place in lower land, where
now is Far tee mar ty rum, near Ardd-Machce
(Armagh). And there St. Patrick dwelt with
his followers {cum mis).

" Now after some time the Knight of Daire
came, leading his horse Miraculum to feed in the
grassy place of the Christians ; and such letting
loose of the horse into his place offended Patrick ;
and he said, 'Daire has acted foolishly in send-
1 Quoted from the Book of Armagh, by Dr. Todd.

62 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

ing brute animals to disturb the small holy place
which he gave to God.' But the knight heeded
not, like as a deaf man : and as a dumb man
that openeth not his mouth, spake nothing : but
leaving his horse there for that night he went
his way.

" On the next day, however, in the morning,
the knight, coming to see his horse, found him
already dead ; and returning home sad, he said
to his master, ' Lo, that Christian hath slain
thy horse, for the disturbing of his place hath
offended him.'

"And Daire said, ' He also shall be slain; go
now and kill him.' But as they were going
forth, sooner than it can be told, death fell
upon Daire (dictu citius mors inruit super Daire).
Then his wife said, ' This is because of the
Christian ; let some one go quickly, and let his
blessing be brought unto us, and thou shale
recover ; and let them who went forth to kill
him be stopped and recalled.'

" So two men went forth to the Christian, and
concealing what had happened, said unto him,
' Lo, Daire is sick ; let something be carried
unto him from thee, if peradventure he may be
healed.' But St. Patrick, knowing the things

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 63

that had happened, said, ' Yea.' And he blessed
water, and gave it unto them, saying, ' Go,
sprinkle your horse with this water, and take
him with you.' And they did so, and the horse
revived, and they took him with them. And
Daire was healed, when sprinkled with the holy
water.

" Then Daire came after these things to
honour St. Patrick, bringing with him a wonderful
brazen cauldron, from beyond seas (eneinn mira-
bilem trarrnnarinum), which held three firkins.
And Daire said unto the saint, ' Lo, this cauldron
is thine.' And St. Patrick said, ' Gratzacliam'
(gr alias again). Then Daire returned to his
own home and said, ' The man is a fool, for he
said nothing good for a wonderful cauldron of
three firkins, except Gratzacham? Then Daire
added and said to his servants, ' Go and bring
us back our cauldron.' They went and said to
Saint Patrick, ' We must take away our caul-
dron.' Nevertheless, this time also Saint Patrick
said, ' Gratzacham, take it.' So they took it.
Then Daire asked his people saying, ( What
said the Christian when ye took away the caul-
dron ? ' But they answered, ' He said Gratza-
cham again.' Daire answered and said, ( Gratza-

64 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

cham when I give, Gratzacham when I take
away. His saying is so good that with those
Gratzachams his cauldron shall be brought back
to him.' And Daire himself went this time and
brought back the cauldron to Patrick, saying to
him, 'Thy cauldron shall remain with thee, for
thou art a steady and imperturbable man ; more-
over, also, that portion of land which thou didst
desire before, I now give thee as fully as I have
it, and dwell thou there.' And this is the city
which is now named Ardd-Machae. And Saint
Patrick and Daire both went forth to view the
wonderful and well-pleasing gift of the oblation ;
and they went up to that height of land, and
they found there a roe with her little fawn,
which was lying in the place where the altar of
the northern church in Ardd-Machae now is ; and
the companions of Patrick wished to catch the
fawn and kill it. But the Saint would not, nor
did he permit it. Nay, he himself took up the
fawn, carrying it on his shoulders, and the roe,
like a very pet lamb, followed him until he had
laid down the fawn in another field, situated at
the north side of Ardd-Machae, where to this
day, as the learned say, some signs of the miracles
(signa qiuedam virtuiis) still remain."

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 65

There is something of the nature of curses and
spells in this story, but some points in it seem
too beautiful and too characteristic to be omitted :
the tenderness of the Saint for the roe and the
fawn ; the fact that what conquered the chieftain
was his fine indifference to gifts and to wrongs.
'•Thou art a steady and imperturbable man,"
the Irish chief says, and gives him all he asked.

St. Patrick knew the personal loyalty to chief
and friend so ineradicable in the race, and knew
how to appeal to it. The devotion his own
spiritual clansmen felt for him is touchingly
shown in the story of his faithful servant Oran.
St. Patrick had dared to overturn a sacred heathen
pillar stone on one of the plains. The chieftain
of the region resolved to avenge this deed
by killing the Saint. This came to the ears of
Oran. He did not tell his master, but soon
afterwards, when he was driving him past this
chieftain's fortress, he pretended to be fatigued,
and persuaded St. Patrick to take the reins and
his place in the chariot. The lcving stratagem
succeeded. The chieftain cast his javelin at
Oran, supposing him to be the Saint. And the
faithful servant had the desire of his heart in
saving his master's life at the cost of his own.

E

66 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

St. Patrick's last days seem to have been spent
chiefly in Ulster, in the scenes of his earliest
missionary labours. He is said to have died in
extreme old age.

The story says that he was setting out for
Armagh to die among his disciples there, but
that an angel met him and sent him back to
Saul, the place of his captivity and his first
victory, and that there where his first church
had been built, on the site of the barn given him
by his first convert, his spirit passed to the rest
and service beyond. And so ends the life of St.
Patrick, the great national Poem of Ireland.

IV.

The period of St. Patrick's life to which his other
unquestioned writing — the Epistle to Coroticus
— belongs does not seem certain. It is interest-
ing, because it is the voice of the shepherd crying
against the wolves which had ravaged his flock.

It is addressed to Coroticus and his soldiers,
apparently nominal Christians from Wales, who
had slain and captured some of St, Patrick's
Irish Christians. Also it ends, not with curses,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 67

but with a yearning plea with these apostate
Christians to repent and be saved. There is a
wonderful pulsation of passionate and varying
emotion in this old writing : indignation and pity,
honour and quenchless hope for the wronged;
yet through all the terrible denunciations on the
wrong-doers, terrible as St. John's, an undying
hope that even these may turn and be saved.
For it is these indeed who are the captives, the
dying and the dead, in bondage to their own
avarice, dying to all that is worth living for, dead
to their faith, to their true selves, and to God.

EXTRACTS FROM ST. PATRICK'S EPISTLE TO
COROTLCUS.

"I, Patrick, a sinner and unlearned, declare
that I was made bishop in Ireland. I most
certainly hold that it was from God I received
what I am, and therefore for the love of God I
dwell a pilgrim and exile among a barbarous
people. He is my witness that I speak the truth.
It was not my wish to use language so harsh and
so severe, but I am compelled by a zeal for God,
and the truth of Christ, who stirred me up for
the love of my neighbours and sons, for whom

68 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

I have given up country and parents, and am
ready to give my life also if I am worthy. I
have made a vow to my God to teach the people,
although some may despise me. With my own
hand I have written and composed these words
to be delivered to the soldiers of Coroticus ; I
say not, to my fellow-citizens, nor to the fellow -
citizens of the Roman saints, but to the fellow-
citizens of demons, who, on account of their evil
deeds, abide in death after the hostile rites of the
barbarians ; companions of the Scots and apostate
Picts, desiring, as it were, to glut themselves with
the 4}lood of innocent Christians, multitudes of
whom I have begotten to God and confirmed in
Christ.

" A cruel slaughter and massacre was com-
mitted by them on some neophytes, while still
in their white robes, the day after they had been
anointed with the chrism, and while it was yet
visible on their foreheads. And I sent a letter
by a holy presbyter, whom I taught from his
infancy, accompanieJ by other clergymen, to en-
treat that they would restore some of the booty
or of the baptized captives whom they had taken
but they turned them into ridicule. Therefore
I know not for whom I should rather grieve,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 69

whether for those who were slain, or those whom
they took captive, or those whom Satan has so
grievously ensnared, and who shall be delivered
over like himself to the eternal pains of hell, for
6 whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin,'
and the child of the devil.

" Wherefore, let every one who fears God
know that these strangers to me and to Christ
my God, whose ambassador I am, are parricides
and fratricides, ravening wolves, 'eating up the
Lord's people as they eat bread,' as he says,
' Lord, the wicked have made void Thy law,'
with which Ireland had been in these latter days
most excellently and auspiciously planted and
taught by God's favour.

"Wherefore I earnestly beseech those who are
holy and humble of heart not to be flattered by
them, nor to eat and drink with them, nor to
receive alms from them, until they repent with
bitter tears and make satisfaction to God, and
set free those servants of God and baptized
handmaids of Christ, for whom He was crucified
and died. The Most High rejects the offerings
of the unjust ; he who offers a sacrifice from

70 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

the substance of the poor is like one who offers
a son as a victim in the sight of his father.

TT TT ^ 'A* *f£-

" It were too long to enter into particulars, or
to enumerate one by one the testimonies from
the (Divine) law against such cupidity. Avarice
is a deadly crime. 'Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbour's goods.' c Thou shalt not kill.' No
murderer can dwell with Christ. 'Whosoever
hateth his brother is reckoned a murderer.'
' He who loveth not his brother abideth in
death.' How much more is he guilty who has
stained his hands with the blood of the sons of
God, whom He has lately acquired in the very
ends of the earth, through my humble ex-
hortations!

" Did I come to Ireland without the Divine
will, or merely from carnal motives ? Who
compelled me? I am bound in the Spirit not
to see my kindred any more. Do I show a true
compassion for that nation which formerly took
me captive? I am free born according to the
flesh, for my father was a Decurio. I have
bartered my nobility for the good of others. I
am not ashamed, nor do I repent of it. In
short, I am delivered over in Christ to a foreign

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 71

people for the unspeakable glory of the eternal
life, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, although
my own friends do not acknowledge me. ' A
prophet has no honour in his own country.'

" Are we not of one fold ? have we not one
father? As the Lord says, ' Whosoever is not
with Me is against Me, and he who gathereth
not with Me scattereth.' It is not fitting that
' one should destroy and another build.' Do I
seek my own ? "

Then he turns from Coroticus and his pirates
with a passion of affection and pity to his captive
sons.

" Therefore I will cry aloud with sorrow and
grief; O most goodly and well-beloved brethren
and sons whom I have begotten in Christ with-
out number, what shall I do for you ? "

This to those who survive in captivity. But
he would not have them think of their murdered
brothers and sisters as lost. These are the
victors, not the vanquished, and to them he
pours forth a song of welcome and victory.

"Thanks be to God, ye, O believers and bap-
tized ones, have departed from the world to
Paradise. I behold you. Ye have begun your
journey to that region where there shall be 'no

72 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

night/ nor ' sorrow,' nor death any more, but ye
shall rejoice as ' calves let loose, and ye shall
tread down the wicked, and they shall be as ashes
under your feet/

" Ye therefore shall reign with the Apostles,
and Prophets, and Martyrs, and shall receive
an everlasting kingdom, as He Himself bears
witness, saying, 'They shall come from the East
and from the West, and shall sit down with
Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom
of heaven.' "

Then again returning to the apostate Christians,
he pleads with the severest words of warning with
them for their captives and themselves.

"'Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and mur-
derers, and liars, and perjurers, whose part shall
be with the lake of fire eternal.' For not without
reason does the Apostle say, ' If the righteous
scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly, and
the sinner, and the transgressor of the law be
found ? ' Where shall Coroticus be with his
wicked rebels against Christ ? Where shall they
find themselves, who distribute among their
depraved followers baptized women and captive
orphans, for the sake of a wretched earthly
kingdom, which passes away in a moment like

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 73

a cloud, or smoke scattered by the wind? Thus
shall sinners and deceivers perish from the face
of the Lord; but the righteous shall feast continu-
ally with Christ, and judge the nations, and rule
over unjust kings for ever and ever.

" I bear witness before God and His holy
angels, that it shall be as my ignorance has said.
These are not my words, but those of God and
the Apostles and Prophets, who have never lied,
which I have put forth in Latin.

" ' He who believeth shall be saved, and he
.who believeth not shall be damned.' God hath
spoken. I earnestly entreat whatever servant of
God is willing to be the bearer of this letter, that
it may not be kept back from any one, but may
rather be read before all the people, and in the
presence of Coroticus himself."

It is a trumpet- voice he is sending forth, a
summons to surrender; and feeling his own
impotence, he turns to Him who can save both
the oppressed and the oppressor — ■

"But oh that God would inspire them, that
at some time they may return unto Him, that
thus, even though late, they may repent of their
evil deeds. They have murdered the brethren
of the Lord. But let them repent and release

74 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

the baptized women whom they have already-
taken captive, that so they may be worthy to live
unto God, and may be made whole here and for
eternity. Peace to " (or with ?) " the Father, and
the Son, and the Holy Ghost."

It seems a curious ending, and has puzzled
translators. But is it not simply Patrick's soul
rising from the tumult below to the "Hallelujahs"
above ?

V.

We have three very ancient authentic docu-
ments showing what was the faith St. Patrick
brought to Ireland : the Creed in his Confes-
sion ; what we may call his Catechism in the
legend of his baptismal teaching to the two
princesses by the well ; and his Hymnus Scoticus,
that great Practice of the Presence of God, so
long used as a Lorica or Breastplate in the
Spiritual Combat by Irish men and women.

In the Catechism* we see how the first
questions come from the catechumens. His
answer unfolds to them with wonderful simplicity
and sublimity the omnipresence of God in all
the natural universe. Yet he begins not with

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 75

nature, but with man : man's personal relation
to God, " our God " ; the relation of God to all
men, " the God of all men." Then follows the
Revelation of God as Eternal Love, the Father,
the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

This is the eager question of the maidens — ■

" How is He to be loved ? How is He to be
found? "

And his answer is —

" I desire to lead you to the Heavenly King."

" Teach us how we may believe," they say, as
he leads them from question to question. " Show
us how we may see Him ; and whatever thou
shalt say unto us we will do."

This introduces the Christian Sacraments, and
all the moral teaching about sin, repentance, and
remission, immortal life, resurrection and judg-
ment, and the unity of the Universal Church.

The Hymn gives us the secret of the Saint's
own spiritual life — a life not lived in guarded
seclusion from temptation, in prosaic blindness
to the past, or in dreamy blindness to the local
colour of the present, or in detachment from
nature or human life, but in perpetual " Practice
of the Presence of God " through all.

All this treasure of life and light St. Patrick

;6 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

brought with him and carried with him into
every corner of the land; his priceless and im-
perishable gift to the country which has been so
loyally devoted to his memory.

Then as to external results in organization of
Church and State, in building, and in literature.
St. Patrick always seems to speak of himself as
unlearned (indoctus) ; and making all allowance
for religious expressions of self-depreciation, it
may be probable that his work was to give seed
to the sower rather than bread to the eater. If
not himself the first to sow the seeds of learning
everywhere, his mission was to consecrate what
was already there, to turn earthly things to
heavenly uses. On the three sacred stone pillars
of the Druids in Connaught he wrote three
names of Christ, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin —
Jesus, Soter, Salvator; and this was typical of
his whole method. The Bards were to be won
over to Christianity, not exterminated ; the
authority of the chieftains, the loyalty of the
clansmen, was as far as possible to be incorpor-
ated into the Church. Bishops had clans rather
than dioceses assigned to them ; priests were to
be chaplains to the chieftains and as kinsmen
of the clansmen. The poetry was to flow into

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 77

the higher channels of Christian revelation ; the
music to become psalmody to gladden the
services of the Church.

Tradition assigns to him the reform of the
ancient Druidical laws. At Tara legend says
King Laoghaire summoned a council of men
consisting of three kings, three saints or bishops,
three bards or historians. The code they then
revised is still extant, the Senckus Mor, also
called " the Law of St. Patrick," and " the
Knowledge of Nine."

It is supposed that he introduced the Roman
alphabet instead of the ancient Irish; it is to be
remembered that the Gospels and Psalters pre-
served in the Irish monasteries are in Latin, also
the Liturgy. Only the hymns were in Irish,
St. Patrick's Hymnus Scoticus, and some of the
hymns and poems of St. Columba. Latin in
those days meant, of course, civilization and
culture, the gate into all the inheritance of the
civilized nations of the past and present.

It is to be noted that the version of the Gospel
quoted in the Confession is earlier than the
Vulgate of St. Jerome, although St. Jerome's
translation had been in existence for some time.
Indeed throughout the story of Patrick, as of

78 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

St. Columba in the next century, much of the
interest lies in the detachment from the rest of
the world, Christian or barbarian. There is
nothing in St. Patrick's life to indicate that it
was contemporary, as it was, with that of St.
Chrysostom, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine.
Yet St. Augustine must have been writing his
Confessions about the same time as St. Patrick
was writing his ; St. Jerome was struggling with
the difficulties of Hebrew and Greek in his
Revised Version (objected to as an unnecessary
novelty by not a few) ; St. John Chrysostom
was Bishop of Constantinople in 397, and died
in exile at Kukusus, in 404; Nestorius was
condemned at Chalcedon in 430.

In St. Patrick's lifetime Rome was three times
menaced by the barbarians, and twice taken. In
410 it was taken by Alaric and his Goths, a siege
and fall which resounded through the world, and
found its reverberations in St. Augustine's " City
of God."

In a.d. 450, being virtually abandoned by the
emperors Eastern and Western, the great Pope
Leo I. defended his city and flock from Attila
and his Huns, confronting Attila in his camp
and inducing him to retire. In 454 Leo again

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND.

70

sought to defend his people from the Arian
Vandals, and though unable to save them from
plunder, succeeded in saving the inhabitants
from destruction. Yet all these convulsions
scarcely seem to make any vibration in the life
of St. Patrick.

Ireland had indeed her own small fights of
clans and chieftains, but it seemed as if for a time
she was islanded away from the deluges which
were sweeping over Europe, and the earthquakes
which were convulsing it — an Ark of God to
enshrine and preserve the faith for Scotland and
England, and through them for the rest of the
world.

It was especially, no doubt, by means of
monastic institutions that this was accomplished.
And these were among the solid things of St.
Patrick's life.

The buildings of his monasteries were rough
and small. "The way in which Patrick made
the Fertae" (sepulchral churches, usually built
around relics) "was this: seven score feet in the
Les " (or fort, a round building enclosing the
dwellings of the monks), seven in the guest-
house, seventeen feet in the kitchen, and seven
feet in the oratory" There the monks and

8o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.

students were gathered : a fortress from the
continual contests of the clans ; a retreat for
study, a sanctuary for worship in the daily Sacred
Offices of intercession and thanksgiving.

This was the germ of such great religious
houses as Banchor in Antrim, or of St. Bridget's,
Kildare, in which during the following century
were gathered communities of three thousand at
a time. And thus was preserved for Christendom
the treasure of religion and civilization which
St. Patrick brought to Ireland.

ST. COLUMBA.

*3

ST. COLUMBA.
I.

We come next in our " rough island story "
to the story of a very small island, to another
"fountain springing up on the soil of Britain"
for the world; to Iona, the island of St. Columba.
Every tiniest perennial spring, we know, has its
origin from and its outlet into infinity, is an
inheritor of the boundless resources of earth,
and sea, and sky. Perhaps from some deep
reservoir, some cool subterranean hidden lake
in the dark recesses of the hills ; perhaps from
some sudden lodgment, after trickling through
a sandy bed, on a soil it cannot penetrate, whence
therefore it creeps again to the light. But
certainly, through whatever recent channels,
originating from above ; drawn upward from
the heaving spaces of the ocean, or from the
dewdrops of some quiet garden on some angels'

$4 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

ladder of sunbeams, and distilled downward from
some floating cloud ; certainly, in one line of
descent or another, having for its parents the
boundless sea and the quenchless sun.

Usually, we know, the fountains spring to
light through the heart and life of some one
freshly inspired and consecrated man, who has
drunk deeply of the fountain of life, and ever
abides beside it. " If any man thirst, let him
come unto Me and drink, and from his heart
shall flow rivers of living water."

But, in a secondary sense, the fountain owes
its origin to many human and historical sources.
St. Columba the Irishman leads us back to St.
Patrick's Ireland. St. Patrick, we know, was not
an Irishman, but St. Columba was typically Irish.
The vivid colours of the national character glow
with delightful distinctness through all the white
halo thrown around him. The dullest attempt
at his biography cannot reduce the variety and
sparkle of the prism to monotonous, colourless
daylight. No amount of painstaking endeavour
to bleach the life into an edifying homily or a
mere record of supernatural marvels can succeed
in merging in the conventional saint the man,
the very human man, the essentially Irish Irish-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND 8$

man. Underneath all you cannot help catching
the tones of —

" The powerfulest preacher,
And tenderest teacher,
And kindliest creature
In old Donegal/'

For it was in Donegal that St. Columba was
horn, about a.d. 520 (518 — 5^3), not half a
century after the death of St. Patrick, about
the time of the death of St. Bridget.

He did not arrive in lona, however, until
about a.d. 565, and died there in 596 or 597,
at the age of seventy-seven ; so that his labours
spread through the century.

He is said to have been about forty-two years
old when he landed at lona, so that the larger
part of his life was spent in Ireland ; and the
learning of his life-lessons and his training for
his work were chiefly there.

His birthplace was Gartan, a wild district of
Donegal swept by the winds of the Atlantic.
He was of the clan which gave its name to the
district, and of the family of the Dalriad kings,
to which had also belonged Milchu, St. Patrick's
master. His great-great-great-grandfather was
" Neall of the nine hostages."

86 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Since St. Patrick's time the Dalriads had
made a settlement on the opposite coasts of
Scotland, and we hear of St. Columba's cousins,
Aidan and others, among the chieftains there.
His mother's name was Eithne. She was of
Leinster, of the family of a king or chieftain.
Her name reminds us of Eithne the Fair, one
of the king's daughters baptized by St. Patrick
at the well.

Adamnan tells the story of a dream his mother
had before his birth. An angel of the Lord
appeared to her in a dream, bringing to her as
he stood by her, a certain robe of extraordinary
beauty, in which the most beautiful colours, as
it were, of all the flowers seemed to be portrayed.
After a short time he asked it back, and took
it out of her hands, and having raised it and
spread it out, he let it fly through the air. But
she being sad at the loss of it, said to that man
of venerable aspect, " Why dost thou take this
lovely cloak away from me so soon ? " He
immediately replied, " Because this mantle is so
exceedingly honourable that thou canst not
retain it longer with thee." When this was
said, the woman saw that the fore-mentioned
robe was gradually receding from her in its

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 87

flight, and that then it expanded until its width
exceeded the plains, and in its measurements was
larger than the mountains and forests. Then
she heard the following words : " Woman, do
not grieve, for to the man to whom thou hast
been joined by the marriage bond thou shalt
bring forth a son, of so beautiful a character,
that he shall be reckoned among his own people
as one of the prophets of God, and hath been
predestined by God to be the leader of innumer-
able souls to the heavenly country.'' At these
words the woman awoke from her sleep.

He was baptized at Temple Douglas by
the priest Cruithnechan, to whose care he was
confided.1

One day (it is said in Adamnan's life) this
good priest on returning from church after
Mass saw a bright light illuminating his house,
and quietly entering the room where the little
boy was sleeping, he beheld a radiance as of
a ball of fire on the face of the child. He
trembled and fell down on the ground, knowing

1 With two baptismal names, Professor G. T. Stokes
says, much opposed in meaning, and very significant of the
contrasts and conflicts in his character — Crimtha?in, a wolf;
and Colum, a dove,

88 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

this indicated the light within, the Holy Spirit
illumining the soul of the boy.

Everywhere from his earliest childhood there
seems to have been something in him that won
the devoted love of all who had to do with him,
and created an expectation of great things
from him which doubtless helped to fulfil
itself.

From this home of his fosterage he went to
Moville, a monastery in Down on Loch Strang-
ford, where he studied under St. Finnian. There
he was ordained deacon. From Moville he went
to Leinster to the monastery of Clonard.

Here, besides the teaching of the monks, he
was under the instruction of Gemman, a Christian
Bard. Between this old man and his- pupil grew
a warm friendship. To the end of his life he
was loyal to the Bards, defending them effectually
when threatened with expulsion. He was indeed
called a Bard himself.

There is a legend that the two men were once
reading on the open plain near each other, when
a young girl, pursued by a " pitiless oppressor,"
fled to the old man for refuge. Gemman called
for the aid of Columba, but the pursuer suc-
ceeded in stabbing the girl under the cloaks

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 89

they threw around her, and leaving her dead
at their feet, turned and fled.

" How long," said the old Bard, "will God, the
just Judge, suffer this wrong to go unavenged ? "

"At this very instant," said Columba, "the
soul of the maiden soars to heaven, and the
soul of the murderer sinks to hell."

And scarcely had he spoken when the "furious
fleeing man," blinded by rage and fear, fell over
a stone and was killed.

Tender pity for the wronged and fierce in-
dignation against the wrong-doer were always
close in Columba's heart.

At Clonard he was ordained priest by Bishop
Etchen, and thence he passed on to the monastery
of Glasnevin near Dublin, under the saintly and
learned Abbot Mobhi.

Ireland during the fifty years since St. Patrick's
death had become studded with monasteries, and
it seems as if the monks went from one to
another to study under men distinguished in
different ways, like the students in the German
universities.

But in all these houses " plain living and high
thinking " were combined. The monastic build-
ings were clusters of huts on the side of a hill or

90 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

by a river. Manual labour was required in all.
Columba, descendant of chieftains, ground the
corn with the rest, and in this also did his work
with all his heart, so that his companions said the
angels helped him. Everywhere love and honour
encircled him ; not always without the shadow of
envy from meaner natures, one of whom received
the rebuke from another, "What hast thou
sacrificed but a carpenter's bench ? But he has
sacrificed a throne." Scarcely a noble rebuke !
We know there are eyes to which the carpenter's
bench, like the widow's mite, would be as much
as the throne, if it were all that the possessor
had.

A vivid picture of the life in these Irish monas-
teries rises before us, — the daily services with
music and song, the eager drinking in of all
learning, ancient Greek and Roman, and Christian,
— Ovid and Virgil were real there ; — the delight
in transcribing manuscripts, and making them
beautiful with illuminations. All that the "Press,"
and all the societies of arts and sciences, and all
the guilds and unions of trades and crafts mean
to us were concentrated in these monastic com-
munities, besides the countless agencies for the
organization of charity and relief of distress.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 91

We know that Columbas own delight in tran-
scribing and possessing and diffusing manuscripts
was intense. Nothing made him so angry as the
grudging the loan of a book to copy and use for
others; nothing so aroused the "wolf" in his
heart.

All the delight in grace of form and harmony
of colour belonging to his race found its outlet
in the illuminations of exquisite Irish gospels and
psalters. The few of these which are left after
the ravages of the Norsemen are the wonder of
all who see them for delicacy and finish ; the
colour rich and tender as the markings of flowers,
the interlacing lines and curves of such subtle
grace and masterly firmness.

In Italy and Gaul, one barbaric race after
another, Hun and Vandal and Lombard, were
laying waste the civilization of ages. In Britain
the Saxon (or English) heathen were effacing the
remains of Roman culture and organization.
But in this island oasis by the western sea, the
young sons of the chieftains were eagerly travel-
ling from monastery to monastery, gathering up
all the inheritance of art and thought, Roman
and Grecian, not omitting their own national
poems ; praising God in the old Latin prayers and

92 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

hymns, and enriching the hymnal with Christian
poetry of their own.

In Rome, indeed, Pope Gregory the Great,
amidst the floods of the destructive Lombard
invasion, was consolidating the Christian ecclesi-
astical organization, which, with Roman law, was
the only thing of the ancient world left standing.

But between Ireland and Rome the world was
one seething flood of what must have seemed
then, what did seem to Sr. Gregory, the final
deluge of hopeless devastation and ruin. Ireland
indeed was not free from her own perennial
faction-fights. The monasteries had to be also
forts. And in the warfare of the clans Columba
not seldom took a keen interest and share.

When, in Columba's twenty-third year, the
"Yellow Plague" scattered the community of
Clonard, he went northward. The next nineteen
years were years of ceaseless activity. He is said
to have founded more than thirty monasteries,
aided, no doubt, by his kinship with many of the
chieftains and kings. His monastic life never
severed him from the ties of clan and family.
The Irish monastic communities seem indeed to
have been incorporated with the clans, the dignity
of Abbot frequently descending in the family of

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 93

the founder. The communities seem to have
consisted of the nucleus of a religious house,
with a large outer circle of tenants, workmen, and
followers, like the household of a chieftain, more
or less connected by ties of blood. Columba
was no foreigner, like St. Patrick. He dwelt
among his own people. He had always a
passionate attachment to his country, his family
and clan, the places familiar to him.

Keenly interested in the politics of his race,
tenderly clinging to early associations, and bound
up heart and soul with the monasteries where he
had studied, reverenced as a saint, and followed
as a chieftain by the communities he had founded,
it must have seemed as if none of the sons of
Erin were more irrevocably fixed to her soil
than Columba.

And yet the great work of his life was to be
elsewhere ; the work which made his life one of
the fountains of religion and civilization to the
world. And this new path of power and blessing
was entered by a very lowly door.

94- EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

II.

Little Iona lay still and lonely, with the
Atlantic waves surging against her eastern shore,
the mountains of Mull looking down on her
from the east, the ocean no one had ever crossed
between her and the shore no one had ever
dreamt of.

In England the heathen Saxons were steadily
advancing from east to west, from south to north,
defeating and massacring the British Christians,
driving them from home after home in the rich
lowlands into the mountain fortresses of Wales.
In 563, the year of Columba's landing in Iona,
Uriconium, " the White City on the plain/' one
of the last Roman cities left, with its public
buildings and pleasant villas, was captured and
burnt. But in Ireland, all this time, .in spite
of the quarrels of the clans, civilization and
the Christian faith were spreading; Columba
especially was founding monasteries in all parts
of the land, refuges of learning, and homes of
prayer, gathering around him students and
disciples, clerical and lay, inducing kinsmen and
friends to consecrate themselves to God and to
the service of man.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AXD ENGLAND. 95

It is evident that he had every gift and faculty
that might have made him a leader in his own
land, the land he so dearly loved to the end of
his life. High lineage, numerous and affectionate
kindred, that indefinable personal charm which
makes other men delight to follow and obey, and
inspires them in following to be their highest and
do their best.

Intense and fervent, ardent and impulsive as
he was, with the quick perceptions and keen
feelings of his race, he also worked with the
patient steady industry of the most prosaic (we
are told he had never an idle moment), lived by
rule, himself obeying the Rule he made others
obey. Everything we are told of him gives the
impression of the most splendid physique. Tall,
with a deep rich voice that se'emed low and soft
when near, yet penetrated beyond all other voices
in clear enunciation, — every word telling, — and
heard at a great distance. There seemed to be
nothing he could not or would not do if needed,
from the fine penmanship and colouring of those
exquisite Irish manuscripts, to sailing coracles
across the wild waves of the Atlantic, and
through the perilous straits of the Western Isles.
Adamnan tells how he was industriously baling

96 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

out the water from the boat, in a storm, like
any other seaman, when the sailors themselves
entreated him not to waste his time in doing
what they could do, but to give himself to
prayer. Then he lifted up his hands and prayed,
and soon the vessel reached the port. And
through all this intensity of mental, spiritual,
and physical activity, there was evidently no
overstrain, for the quality we hear of the oftenest
is his wonderful joyousness and gladness of heart,
beaming in his bright countenance, ringing in
his clear, rich voice. There was a radiance about
the brown ruddy face, in the clear grey eyes, on
the fair locks that flowed on each side of the
Celtic tonsure on his brow. One of the miracles
most frequently told of him is the light that
shone around and from him. Whatever else
this may mean, it is evident that his face was
as the face of an angel to those who loved
him ; irradiated by the intensity of the love with
which he loved and was beloved. Yet beloved,
honoured, revered, adored as he was, Irish of
the Irish in every sense, Ireland was not to be
the scene of his great work. Self-exiled, in the
prime of his life, he was to abandon his country
as his home for ever.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 97

It is written of him in one of the legends, that
when he founded the community and laid out
the walls of Kells, he said, " Yet my resurrection
shall not be here." A pathetic unconscious
prophecy, but probably no foreseeing of his own
destiny. The foreseeing of the Saints seldom
comes to guide the circumstances of their own
lives.

Happily for us, the story of St. Columba's
mistakes, and what he considered his sins, has
come down to us, not to be blotted out in all
the loving halo his disciples saw around him.
The shadows are not softened away, without
which we should see the high qualities not in
high relief, as we do, but in a dull faint outline.
Happily, with St. Columba as with St. Peter, we
know of the sinking under the waves as well as
of the walking upon them, and therefore we also
know of the Hand outstretched to uphold and
save.

He was far too spontaneous to be flawless, and
being great the flaws also were great. The self-
contradictory eulogy, " he never had an enemy/'
certainly could not have been applied to him.
He was too great for small natures not to envy ;
too generous for ungenerous natures not to mis-

98 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

understand, interpreting him by themselves ; too
just, and too indignant against injustice not to
be hated by the wrong-doers and oppressors he
opposed and baffled. Never to have had an
enemy in this twisted and broken world must
mean never to have fought a battle for the truth
or the right.

The One only sinless and immaculate was, we
know, surrounded by implacable hatred, as well
as by devoted love — love unto death, hatred unto
death ; and St. Columba was not " without sin."
His faults were as vigorous as his virtues, and in-
extricably intertwined with them. The story of
his heart-breaking exile from Ireland, his glorious
vocation to Scotland, is told in the oldest and
most authentic of the biographies, and has in-
delibly engraved itself on the heart of the nations
who would have delighted to celebrate him as
"without reproach."

The quarrels which led to the battle of the two
branches of the clan O'Neill were about the two
things most likely to arouse Columba's indigna-
tion ; what seemed to him an unjust refusal of a
book he had copied, and a violation — as he
considered — of the right of Sanctuary in killing a
boy who had appealed to his protection.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 99

His friend, St. Finnian of Moville, possessed a
Psalter which Columba greatly desired to tran-
scribe, and did transcribe secretly, contrary to the
wish of the owner. When Finnian found this
out, he said the copy belonged to him, as the
"son-book" of his own book. They both
selected Diarmid, chief or king of the southern
branch of St. Columba's clan of the O'Neills, to
arbitrate between them. Diarmid's decision be-
came proverbial, "To every cow her own calf:
and to every book its own son-book."

The grudging of books was at all times
especially hateful to Columba. The Black Book
of Molaya, which tells of the grudging of St.
Finnian, also tells of a learned old man called
Longared, who possessed many manuscripts
which Columba much wished to be allowed to
transcribe, but was churlishly refused. He re-
torted with the curse, " May thy books never
more do good either to thee or to those who will
come after thee ! " And accordingly, says the
legend, when the old man died, his books were
found to be unintelligible. Whether this was a
miracle, or simply the natural result of bad
writing on the part of Longared, the legend
clearly indicates St. Columba's view as to the use

ioo EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

of books, namely to " do good " to as many as
possible ; and why he disliked those who in a
miserly way hoarded them.

While Columba's heart was embittered by
what he considered this low view of books, and
the unjust sentence of King Diarmid, a far deeper
wrong, as he regarded it, from the same king,
wounded him to the heart.

" Diarmid's son Fergus, King of Ireland, made
the Feast of Tara, and a nobleman was killed at
that feast by Curnan, son of Aodh ; wherefore
Diarmid killed him in revenge for that, because
he committed murder at the feast of Tara, against
law and the sanctuary of the feast ; and before
Curnan was put to death, he fled to the protec-
tion of Columcille, and notwithstanding the protec-
tion of Columcille, he was killed by Diarmid, and
from that it arose that Columcille mustered the
Clanna Neil of the north, because his own pro-
tection and the protection of the sons of Earc
was violated, whereupon the battle of Cul
Dreimhne was gained over Diarmid and the
Connaught men, so that they were defeated
through the prayers of Columcille."

Another version of the story is, that Colu mba,
in a passion of indignation at the wrong and the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 101

insult, exclaimed at the feast of Tara, "O bad
king, I will denounce thee to my clan for the
sword. Thou shalt see me no more till thou art
humbled as thou hast humbled me." The King
would have detained him, but he fled from Tara
that night, travelling by the wild mountain paths
to Tyrconnel, because the ordinary paths were
guarded. He had no question of the wrong
done to the boy Curnan and to himself, and to
the Church, whose right of sanctuary he re-
presented, and as he climbed the mountain ways
in the darkness of that night he sang in his
heart the

SONG OF TRUST.

" No man goes with me on the dark mountains,
Alone I pursue my rough road ;
Do thou, sacred Sun, smooth my pathway,
And fear shall flee far from my front.

When the day of my death-time hath dawned,
Six score stalwart men could not save me,
Nor fastness nor fortress can guard
From fate fixed by God and fore-ordered.

The wicked die even in church,
Or midst friends in an isle in a lake ;
But God's men are safe and unharmed
In the front and the fury of fighting.

102 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

My life?

Will be lived while God wills ;

None can lengthen, or shorten, or change it;

Each man's lot must be lived ere he dies ;

Not the proudest of princes can change this.

Often that which is risked most is saved,

Often that which is guarded, destroyed.

Living God !

Woe to him who works evil ;
Misfortunes unthought of will scare him,
Hopes that he nurseth will die,
Eternal despair will ensnare him.

No magic can mirror man's fate,
No bird on no bush can foretell it ;
But our Maker is worthy our trust,
On Him now I rely for my safety.

My Druid is Christ, Son of God,

And of Mary, He is my great Abbot.

The Father, the Son, and the Spirit,

One God, are my stronghold and shelter.
To these three I commit my good lands,
To these One I commit my dear Order." 1

The slaughter in the battle of Cul Dreimhne
was great ; and the slain, as well as the victors,
were Columba's kinsmen.

Two consequences followed ; the restoration of

1 From the Life of St. Columba, by William Muir and
the Rev. T. C. Rendell, who translated the Latin from
Adamnan.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 103

the Psalter, and the waking up of Columba's
heart to what he had done in exciting his clan to
battle. The night before the battle he had fasted
and prayed, apparently with no misgivings, for on
the morrow he went himself into the battle,
solemnly taking the blood of the slain on himself.

The book, the precious Psalter, called the
Cathach, -which Columba had copied, was won
back to him, and was presented by him to his
clan. The old Irish Life says, " Now the Cathach
is the name of the book on account of which the
battle was fought, and it is the chief relic of
Columcille, in the country of Cinell Conaill
Galban ; and it is covered with silver and gold,
and it is not lawful to open it ; and if it be sent
thrice sunwise round the army of the Cinell
Conaill when they are going to battle, they will
return safe and with victory ; and it is on the
breast of a cleric who is to the best of his power
free from mortal sin that the Cathach should be
when brought round the army/'

The book was won, but not to be read ; only
to become a mere magic spell. That was one
external consequence of the battle. The other
was that a synod was summoned by King Diarmid
at Telltown, and St. Columba was excom-

104 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

municated during his absence; but with fearless
courage he appeared afterwards before the
assembly. " When St. Brendan, the founder of
the monastery which in the Scotic language is
called Birra (Birr in King's County), saw him
approach in the distance, he quickly arose, and
with head bowed reverently kissed him. When
some of the seniors in that assembly, going apart
from the rest, were finding fault with him, and
saying, ' Why didst thou not decline to rise in
the presence of an excommunicated person, and
to kiss him ? ' he replied to them in this wise :
' If,' said he, ' you had seen what the Lord has
this day thought fit to show to me regarding this
His chosen one, whom you dishonour, you would
never have excommunicated a person whom God
not only doth not excommunicate, according to
your unjust sentence, but even more and more
highly esteemeth.' 6 How, we would wish to
know,' said they in reply, c doth God exalt, as
thou sayest, one whom we have excommunicated,
not without reason ? ' ' I have seen,' said
Brendan, 'a most brilliant pillar wreathed with
fiery tresses preceding this same man of God
whom you treat with contempt ; I have also seen
holy angels accompanying him on his journey

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 105

through the plain. Therefore I do not dare to
slight him whom I see foreordained by God to
be the leader of his people to life.' When he
said this they desisted, and so far from daring to
hold the Saint any longer excommunicated, they
even treated him with the greatest respect and
reverence." This took place in Teilte (Tailte,
now Telltown in Meath).

The excommunication was withdrawn ; the
precious book was restored ; the battle was won.
And then it was that the conscience of the Saint
seems to have awaked, not for dread of any peril
to himself; it was the heart of the shepherd that
awoke in anguish for the sheep of his flock slain
through his fault. " He visited St. Lasrian, his
confessor, after the battle, seeking of him whole-
some counsel ; that is, in what way, after the
slaughter of so many slain, he might obtain the
good-will of God and remission of sins. There-
fore the blessed Lasrian, searcher of the Divine
Scriptures, said that he should liberate as many
souls from penalties as he had caused to be lost ;
and, in addition, he ordered him to dwell for ever
in exile, out of Ireland."

"Another time, Columba with many disciples
came to the holy father Abban, and being received

106 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

by him with great devotion, said to him — ' We
come to thee that thou mayest pray for the souls
of those who were slain in the battle of late fought
by our persuasion, for the sake of the Church.
For we know what on thy intercession follows
from the mercy of God. We entreat, therefore,
that thou wouldst inquire from the angel who
converses with thee daily what is the will of God.'
And then the holy man went into the secret
place where he was wont to pray to God, and to
see and hear the angel of God. When he, with
all earnestness, had given himself forth in prayer,
St. Columba, wishing to see the holy father pray,
and to hear what the angel would say to him,
went after him, closely observing him. When,
therefore, St. Abban thus prayed, lo ! the angel
of the Lord said to him, ' O, Abban, what thou
hast done is enough, for God has granted thee thy
petition.' Who replied, ' I have only asked from
the Lord rest for those souls for whom St.
Columba is concerned.' And the angel said :
'They have rest.'"

In the account of O'Donnell, Columba declares
himself ready to be a voluntary exile, accusing
himself of the disastrous consequences of the
battle. " According to what the angel said to

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 107

me," he said, " I must migrate from Ireland, and
be an exile as long as I live, because on my
account many of you have perished in battle."

However reverently others might think of him,
his own soul was torn with anguish for the faith-
ful clansmen hurried out of life in the battle
through no fault of their own, longing that they
might not be lost. And more than this. By
the redeeming power of Christian faith, out of his
agony and repentance was born the larger hope
of arousing men to the nobler battle against
heathenism and ignorance and sin, of carrying
on the great work of Redemption, and making
known the atoning, redeeming Christ to those
who knew Him not. He went to bid farewell to
his beloved monasteries of Durrow and Derry.

11 My Derry, my little oak grove,
My dwelling and my little cell ;
Oh, eternal God, in Heaven above,
Send woe on him who spoils Derry.

Beloved is Raphoe the pure,
Beloved is fertile Drumhome,
Beloved are Swords and Kells ;
But sweeter and fairer to me
The salt sea where the sea-gulls cry
When I come to Derry from far ;
It is sweeter and dearer to me,
Sweeter to me."

10S EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

But through all the clinging of affection, and
all the pain of farewell, there is no hesitation.
St. Columba's face is towards the sun-rising. By
the redeeming, renewing power of the Christian
faith, out of his agony and repentance were born
the wider hope arousing men to the nobler battle
against heathenism and ignorance and sin, of
carrying on the Divine work of Redemption, and
making known the atoning, redeeming Christ to
those who knew Him not.

And so the great Story without End of over-
coming evil with good, of conquering through
suffering, of redemption through the Cross
goes on.

St. Patrick's mission of liberation to Ireland
was begun in the heart of a captive and a slave.

St. Columba's mission to Scotland, and through
Scotland to England and the world, was rooted
in the anguish of a heart grieving for sin, but
turning its anguish into joy for others. Can any
stories of the Holy War be more beautiful and
typical than these two ?

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 109

III.

And so St. Columba's great mission to Scot-
land, and through Scotland to England and the
world, began. The power of his gracious, bene-
ficent presence was transferred to the land of his
willing exile, of his affectionate adoption.

Twelve disciples accompanied him, the usual
number for the foundation of a new community.
One of these was Mochonna, who said to him,
" It is thou who art my father. I vow to follow
thee whithersoever thou goest." " My country,"
Columba replied, " is wherever I can win the
largest harvest for Christ/'

And so they launched their coracle, the
wicker boat, sixty feet long, covered with ox-
hide, and thwarted with oaken beams, perhaps
from the oak-woods of his beloved Derry, or
from Durrow.

The feelings with which he crossed the sea to
his exile are rendered in one of the ancient Irish
songs attributed to him.

" It was joy to ride on the white-horsed sea,
And to watch its waves break upon Ireland ;
It was joy to row in my boat on the sea,
And to land 'midst its foam upon Ireland ;

no EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

But my boat has its stern now to Derry,

And its bow to the land of the Ravens ;

The noble sea now bears my boat

To Albyn, the land of the Ravens.
Mine eyes will see Ireland no more,

Great tears fall from grey eyes towards Ireland ;

When the prow of my boat lifteth high,

I painfully gaze back on Ireland.

Oh ! Ireland, where birds sing so sweetly,

Oh ! Ireland, where clerks sing like birds,

Where men are so strong and so gentle,

And women so faithful and fair,

And elders so wise and so stately,

And princes so noble and great.

Many in Albyn are the warriors,
Many the diseases and the crimes,
Many are the half-naked people,
Many are the hard and jealous hearts.

Ireland ! land of the oak, plum, and apple,

My blessing seven-fold be on thee.

My yearning heart breaketh at exile ;

If I die now 'tis for love of Ireland."

They landed first at Oronsay. But there it is
said he climbed a hill, and finding he could still
see the shores of Ireland thence, decided that he
could not bear to live in exile in sight of his
native land. So they launched the boat and
landed at Iona, in the little natural haven still
called Port a Churraich (the Port of the Coracle).

Through the one opening between the break-
water of rock and the cliff, he and his twelve

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND, in

must have entered the harbour ; and on the long
straight beach of rounded pebbles, white, and
grey, and porphyry-coloured, and translucent
green, the boat must have been drawn up.
Local tradition still points out the raised mound
of the size and shape of such a coracle under
which it is said to be buried.

When they turned from the sea and looked
inland, the fine circle of steep cliffs must have
confronted them like a grand amphitheatre,
prepared and ready for some great General
Assembly and Church of the faithful.

St. Columba at once, we are told, climbed the
highest peak of rock, and finding, with a sad
repose of heart, that thence he could see Ireland
no longer, but only the boundless expanse of
ocean, of which no man had seen or for ages
would see the shore, he chose the island as his
resting-place and starting-point. Cul-ri-Erin, the
hill with the back towards Ireland, it is called to
this day. Thenceforth he turned his face from
the land he so dearly loved to the people he was
to bless and save, "looking not at the things
behind, but at the things before, pressing towards
the mark for the prize of his high calling in
Christ Jesus."

H2 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Once more we have his own utterance of what
he felt, in a poem bearing the title Cohimcille
fecit.

The contrast between the joyful looking for-
ward of this poem, and the sorrowful lament of
the farewell, touches the full range of feeling of
the heart of the poet and the saint.1

" Delightful would it be to me to be in Uchd Ailhoi,

On the pinnacle of a rock,
That I might often see

The face of the ocean ;
That I might see its heaving waves

Over the wide ocean,
When they chant music to their Father

Upon the world's course ;
That I might see its level sparkling strand,

It would be no cause of sorrow ;
That I might hear the song of the wonderful birds,

Source of happiness ;
That I might hear the thunder of the crowding waves

Upon the rocks ;
That I might hear the roar by the side of the church

Of the surrounding sea ;
That I might see its noble flocks

Over the watery ocean ;
That I might see the sea monsters,

The greatest of all wonders ;

1 The original is in one of the Irish MSS. in the Bur-
gundian Library at Brussels. Quoted and translated by
the Rev. Edward Alexander Cook from Celtic Scotland.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 113

That I might see its ebb and flood

In their career ;
That my mystical name might be, I say,

Cul ri Eri?i (Back turned to Ireland) ;
That contrition might come upon my heart

Upon looking at her ;
That I might bewail my evils all,

Though it were difficult to compute them ;
That I might bless the Lord,

Who conserves all,
Heaven with its countless bright orders-
Land, strand, and flood ;
That I might search the books, all

That would be good for my soul ;
At times kneeling to beloved heaven ;

At times at psalm-singing ;
At times contemplating the King of heaven,

Holy the Chief;
At times at work without compulsion ;

This would be delightful.
At times plucking duilse from the rocks,

At times at fishing ;
At times giving food to the poor ;

At times in a carcair (solitary cell).
The best advice in the presence of God

To me has been vouchsafed.
The King, whose servant I am, will not let

Anything deceive me."

They landed at Iona on the Eve of Whit-
sunday, May 12, a.d. $63.

Think of that first night alone on the bare,
strange island, with no history then except the

ii4 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

ancient history of the seas and rocks ; the fiery
forces that had upheaved the mountains of Mull
that looked down on it, and the basaltic caves of
Staffa, — the water-powers that had moulded them.
Ben More and the mountains of the mainland
between them and the land they were to win ;
the surging ocean between them and the land
they had loved and left.

Think how through the darkness of that night
(as certainly in the services of the coming
Pentecost), with the coracle drawn up on the
beach, in that solemn amphitheatre of rock, with
the roof of starry skies for their temple, the
Gloria in Ecccelsis may have rung through the
silence in the voices of the twelve, led by the
magnificent tones of Columba. It was used in
the night offices of the early Celtic Church.

" Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace to men of good will.

" We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship
Thee, we glorify Thee, we magnify Thee.

" We give thanks to Thee for Thy great mercy,
Lord, Heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.

" Lord, the Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ,
Holy Spirit of God, and we all say Amen.

" Lord, Son of God the Father, Lamb of God,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 1 1 5

who takest away the sins of the world, have
mercy upon us.

" Thou who sittest at the right hand of the
Father, have mercy upon us, Lord, and receive
our prayer.

"For Thou only art holy, Thou only art the
Lord, Thou only art glorious, with the Holy
Ghost, in the glory of God the Father." 1

On the next day, the great Festival of Whit-
sunday, the "Mysteries of the Eucharist" must
have been celebrated, the Holy Communion
received for the first time in Iona, " Himself the
Victim and Himself the Priest, saving the world
by His Cross and blood." 2

1 Irish version — in Latin — of the Gloria in Excelsis,
adapted from the Greek. — Warren's Liturgy of the Celtic
Church.

2 Hymn at the Communicating of Priests in the Anti-
phonary of Banchor—

Dator salutis, christus
filius dei, mundum
saluavit per cru-
-cem et sanguinem

Pro universis immo-

-latus dominus ipse sa-

-cerdos existit

et hostia
From Warren's Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church;
the original arrangements of the quatrains retained.

n6 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

And in the ancient Celtic Liturgy, before the
Gospel, the twelve with Columba would chant
the Benedicite omnia opera, calling on all the
works of the Lord to praise Him : the wild
winds of those western shores, which were yet
the "winds of God"; the seas and floods which
surged around them; the mountains and hills;
the "whales," which still moved through those
waters; the "wells" bubbling up on the hill-
sides; the "beasts and cattle" which were to
pasture there; the "fowls of the air," herons and
sea-gulls; the "green things of the earth,"
heather and grasses which were around them in
the freshness of the May. The human Priest-
hood had come at last to bless and sacrifice the
sweet incense of Nature. Nevermore should the
Song be without Words.

Think what it must have been also for the
twelve to peal out the Catholic Creed, the
Agnus Dei, the Holy, Holy, Holy, for the first
time on those shores ; for that little company
knew well this was a beginning, though they
could not indeed have dreamed of all that then
began.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 117

IV.

The Standard of the Cross — F'exilla Regis —
was indeed planted that Whitsunday in Iona.
The Fountain of Life was indeed unsealed. On
the morrow the long campaign had to begin, the
waters were to be poured forth far and wide.

The twelve would have need of every resource
they possessed, of every art and craft they could
practise. They had to be seamen, fishermen,
builders, carpenters, blacksmiths, tillers of the
ground, shepherds. And first of all they had
to quarry the stones, to gather the flocks, to
plough the ground, to find the seed of the oats
and rye and barley, to collect the wood never
plentiful on Iona. And meantime they had to
live. Their Rule,1 " the Rule of Columcille," in
its hardest requirements as to food and clothing,
was at that moment a necessity. In other
respects, the means of observing it were not yet
at hand. There were neither " the fast place
with a door," for solitude, nor leisure for
"reading" (one of the three prescribed duties,

1 First printed by Bishop Reeves from a MS. in the
Burgundian Library. See Life of St. Columba, by Rev.
E. A. Cook.

nS EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

" prayer, work, reading "), nor " poor neigh-
bours" to clothe and feed and instruct, or " sew
garments for," nor garments to sew. All this
had yet to be created.

But the founding of monasteries, and the
creating out of nothing, were no new works to
St. Columba. The first thing of all, was the living
seed of all the rest, the monastic community, the
twelve devoted men; and these were there, with
their abbot, their father to guide and inspire
them, "offering themselves a living sacrifice to
God for man " according to their Rule, " with
minds prepared for red martyrdom, fortified and
steadfast for white martyrdom, with forgiveness
from the heart for every one, with constant
prayers for those that troubled them, with the
love of God with all the heart and strength, the
love of their neighbours as themselves, abiding
in the narratives of the Holy Scriptures and in
the testaments of God throughout all times."

The Twelve of Iona must soon have expanded
into a large community.

" Illustrious the soldiers who were in Hy,
Thrice fifty in monastic rule,
With the curachs across the- sea^
And for rowing three score men."

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND.

IV

Within the enclosure there were the church, the
cells for the monks, the wooden hut where the
Abbot, St. Columba, slept (with his head on the
pillow of stone, and transcribed the delicately-
finished manuscripts), glorified by his prayers
and the Presence ever with him, and after his
death in itself a sacred monument and shrine.
There also were the kitchen and refectory, or
wooden chamber for the frugal meals, and the
hospital. Besides these, probably outside the
inner wall of rough stones, were the guest-
chambers; cells for the countless guests, invited
and uninvited, who sought Iona and Columba, — -
saints and penitents, kings and poverty-stricken
wanderers, conscience-smitten Christians seeking
counsel and restoration, Pagans awakened to long
for the new teaching. Few days passed in which
there was not a signal from across the Straits of
Mull for a boat to ferry some stranger to Iona;
or some coracle from the opposite shores of
Ireland with friends and disciples of Columba's
from his early Irish foundations. And all this
influx of visitors called for good store of pro-
visions; for however frugally the monks them-
selves lived, according to their Rule "not taking
food till they were hungry," they welcomed their

i2o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

guests with Irish and Highland hospitality, and
entertained them, especially the poor, with their
best, giving " every increase that came to them
in lawful meals, or in wearing apparel in pity to
the brethren that wanted it, or to the poor," for
by the Rule, " Almsgiving is to be followed
before all things." And since Iona is no tropical
island in southern seas, where bread-fruit grows
on the trees, and the clothing, for comfort, may
be of the slightest, but a rocky northern shore,
where every bit of necessary food has to be
wrung out of the soil with much toil, or fished
out of the sea with much peril, and where in
icy winters and rainy summers clothing is im-
peratively needed ; and since, moreover, there
were no markets at Oban or Glasgow to fall back
on, all this hospitality involved no little labour
and foresight on the part of the hosts.

There were therefore barns, kilns, stables, cow-
byres, the smithy, the carpenter's shop, granaries
wherein to store the grain of rye, oats, or barley,
and mills to grind it.

There were also boats of wicker-work and
hide for fishing, for ferrying the guests, for
their own long mission voyages, involving ship-
building, sail-making, tanning hides, &x. We

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 121

read also of carts or " chariots " (especially of
one in which the coachbuilder seems to have
been a little careless, as, to St. Columba's peril,
the wheels had no lynch-pins).

The clothing also, simple as it was, had to
be spun and woven. We read of u sewing
garments " ; and as the help of the naturally
sewing and spinning sex was discarded, the
monks must have had to become as clever with
their fingers as sailors, in making their upper
garments with hoods of coarse wool of the
natural colour, and the tunic underneath of finer
wool, with the shoes of hide, removed when they
sat down to meat.

The monastery of that little island must have
been a busy and cheerful place in St. Columba's
days, as every house where he lived and ruled
was sure to be.

The monastic life at Iona was evidently in no
danger of becoming sleepy or isolated. Indeed
the dangers guarded against in one of the rules
are rather those of a metropolis (which indeed
Iona was, in a very real sense) than of a secluded
retreat. " A person who would talk with thee in
idle words, or of the world ; or who murmurs at
what he cannot remedy or prevent, but who

122 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

would distress thee more, who should be a tattler
between friends and foes, thou shalt not admit
him to thee, but at once give him thy benedic-
tion should he deserve it." A gentle and
original way of disposing of a gossip or a bore,
which had the person so blessed known of the
rule; might have led to self-examination. The
positive remedy for this unprofitable intercourse
is given in another rule. " A few religious men
to converse with thee of God and His Testament ;
to visit thee on days of solemnity ; to strengthen
thee in the testaments of God and the narratives
of the Scriptures." It is remarkable how that
Sacred Literature, those two Sacred Literatures,
the Testaments of God, are, in reading or
transcribing, the joy of their hearts and the food
of their religious life. For at the heart of all were
fervent Christian worship and service, the love of
God and man, continual adoration and solemn
Eucharist, prayer, sacred songs soaring up to
God, in the beauty and order of the Church
Services, even then already well-worn paths of
devotion, for centuries consecrated by the use of
holy souls.

The regularity of that ordered, industrious,
peaceful life must have been no small part of

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 123

the mission of these communities, in the midst
of the tumultuous unrest and disorder, the
fightings and fears of that battling, unsettled,
migratory race and people.

" Everything in its proper order. No man is
crowned except he strive lawfully. The work to
be divided into three parts, viz. thine own work,
and the work of thy place, as regards its real
wants ; thy share of the brethren's work ; lastly,
to help the neighbours, viz. by instruction, or
writing, or sewing garments, or whatever labour
they may be in want of, as the Lord says,
Thou shalt not appear empty before Me."

The labour, spiritual and physical, was more-
over to be not only regular and constant, but
strenuous; "the measure of prayer until tears
come," " the measure of work till tears come," or
"the sweat of the brow," which seems more
appropriate.

No labour was to be beneath them if needed,
baling out the sea in a storm, sewing garments,
grinding corn. At the same time the higher
faculties and training are not to be wasted on the
lower work. The ordained or learned monk is
to have " a servant, a discreet, religious, not
tale-telling man, who is to attend continually on

124 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

thee, with moderate labour, of course, but always
ready." The work of the instructed was especially
to transcribe in the beautiful, marvellously
line, firm and clear penmanship of those Irish
monasteries, and to illuminate for beauty and
delight the manuscripts of Gospel and Psalter
and Liturgy, so needed in the Religious Houses
(reckoned at 300), and to work artistically in
brass and silver and gold and precious stones,
for the sacred vessels and the coverings of the
sacred books.

Think what vistas into the history of the past,
and the possibilities of the future ; into a world
of order and peace and art and knowledge here,
as well as into the heavenly world unseen of love
and peace and beauty in the beatific presence of
God, these communities brought with them.

For, moreover, and essentially, Iona was not
only a gathering-place but a starting-point,
a centre attracting inward, because a centre
radiating outward ; not only a great monastery,
but a great mission-house and propaganda for
Scotland and the world.

The definite aim of these missions was firstly
the northern Picts of Argyle and the Isles, of
Inverness and the regions around. St. Ninian

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 125

had already brought the Christian faith to
Aberdeenshire and the east, although much of
his work had been again overwhelmed in
heathenism, and St. Columbas name is known
as a founder and evangelist also there. In the low-
lands and in the regions around the Clyde, where
Glasgow now is, Christianity had long been known.
St. Kentigern (St. Mungo) was labouring there, and
there is a touching account of a meeting between
him and St. Columba. They are said to have
met at Mellmaonor; on a spot hallowed by the
benediction of St. Ninian, and in sacred counsel
and communion to have exchanged the pastoral
staff with each other in token of their union in
Christ ; and their parting words are said to have
been, — from one, "The way of the just is made
straight and the path of the holy is prepared,"
and the response of the other, " The saints shall
go from strength to strength uatil every one
of them appeareth with the God of gods in
Zion."

But the chief work of St. Columba was, as he
had intended, definitely among the heathen Picts
of the north ; and of that nation he has always
been regarded as the apostle. We are not told
many details of his mission. King Drude, on his

1-6 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

hill-fort near Loch Ness, is the person whose
conversion is most spoken of; the chieftain
whose closed gates Columba opened by the sign
of the cross and prayer, as afterwards his heart
by the revelation of divine love ; whose Druids,
as they tried to drown the sound of the vesper
prayer with their heathen din, he silenced by
the fine resonance of his magnificent voice
penetrating through all the discordant noise.

Everywhere during the thirty years which
St. Columba, when he landed at Iona, hoped to
spend in the conversion of the Picts, he did
spend himself night and day for them, toiling up
and down the mountain paths, braving the perils
of those rocky channels and stormy seas, in cease-
less journeys by sea and land ; among the islands
of the Hebrides, through Argyle and the
northern Highlands, besides his frequent returns
to Ireland, to Munster, to his beloved com-
munities there. Everywhere through both lands
his name is known and beloved to this day — in
lonely islets, in wild Highland glens, in cities and
in villages — as the founder of churches, the
apostle of the nation, the bringer of light and life
to all.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 127

V.

A few extracts from St. Adam nan's Life of St.
Columba may close this sketch.

Adamnan was a man greatly honoured in his
generation and by succeeding generations, him-
self of the kindred of Columba, and the ninth
Abbot of the "Family of Iona."

It gives value to his biography to see with
what honour Bede speaks of him. Two incidents
related of him bring his own life and character
distinctly before us.1

It is said that he was carrying his aged mother
on his back, probably on some long journey
among the Highlands, when they came to the
scene of a battle, where the mother saw the hor-
rible sight of one woman dragging another by a
hooked scythe fixed in her breast. " Never will I
leave this spot," she said to her son, " till thou
hast promised to save women from mingling in
battle." And it is recorded that at a Synod at
Tara, afterwards, Adamnan had a law passed that
thenceforth no woman should serve in " hostings"
or battles.

1 He was also, Bede tells us, author of a Record of Travels
in the Holy Land by Arculf, a French bishop who spent a
winter at Iona.

128 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Adamnan's biography of Columba, precious as
it is, was written at an interval after his death —
perhaps among the most difficult of any — in the
succeeding century. He was born in 624,
twenty-seven years after the death of St. Columba,
and died in 703. Those who had lived familiarly
with the Saint must for the most part have passed
away, though a few still survived who had seen
his face and heard his voice. There had been
time for the halo of legend to confuse colour
and feature in a haze of light. What we long to
know is the usual and ordinary. One day of St.
Columba's everyday life would be of priceless
value to us. There are two reasons which make
this especially difficult for Adam nan to give.
Firstly, Columba's everyday life was the life he
and the "Family of Iona" were habitually living,
and he would not have thought of narrating this
for the benefit of those who lived in the same
place, and by the same Rule. Secondly, he was
the successor of Columba, writing of the Saint
and Founder of his own Abbey. It was his
filial duty to veil every imperfection and heighten
every glory. It would be irreverent to speak to
the sons of Columba's house of the faults of the
Father, the faults the Saint himself so simply and

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 129

humbly acknowledged, and so gloriously atoned
for. And yet the faults of such a character as
Columba's are so inextricably interwoven with
his virtues that in disentangling the discoloured
threads you inevitably mar the whole fabric.
And, moreover, Adamnan's Life is professedly an
Eloge, a Homily on the Saint for the edifica-
tion of the " Family " of Iona, and the faithful
throughout the world.

He divides it into three books: the Prophecies
of Columba ; his Miracles ; and the Angelic
Manifestations vouchsafed him. It is not so
much an attempt at a portrait of the man, as a
monumental memorial of the wonders done for
him and by him. There is no attempt at any-
thing so prosaic as a chronological succession of
events or description of appearance or character.

We have to search through what his con-
temporary, St. Gregory the Great, called " the
visible miracles which are the signs of holiness,"
to find what he called " the spiritual miracles
which are the essence of holiness itself." We
have to discover the man through the marvels,
to recover the natural face through the super-
natural lights, the human character through the

superhuman marvels, the character which so

1

i3o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

marvellously won and kept the devotion of those
who lived with him day by day, and of nations
through subsequent centuries. Let us gather from
this loving eulogy of the Saint what distinctive
features we can of his life and character.

In the Preface it is said —

"He was angelic in appearance, graceful in
speech, holy in work, with talents of the highest
order, and consummate prudence ; he lived a
soldier of Christ during thirty-four years on an
island. He never could spend the space of even
one hour without study, or prayer, or writing, or
some other holy occupation. So incessantly was
he engaged night and day in the unwearied
exercise of fasting and watching, that the burden
of each of these austerities would seem beyond
the power of human endurance. And still in all
these he was beloved by all, for a holy joy ever
beaming on his face revealed the joy and glad-
ness with which the Holy Spirit filled his inmost
soul."

Of the instances of his prophetic gifts one
shows especially his sympathetic insight, in
saving a boy who had been misunderstood and
despised, by recognizing what he might yet
become. " On another occasion, while the blessed

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 131

man was residing for a few months in the midland
part of Hibernia, when founding Durrow, he was
pleased to pay a visit to the Monastery of Clon-
macnoise. As soon as it was known that he was
there, all flocked from their little grange farms,
near the Monastery, and along with those who
were within it, ranged themselves with enthusiasm
under the Abbot Alither ; then advancing beyond
the enclosure of the Monastery, they went out as
one man to meet St. Columba, as if he were an
angel of the Lord. Humbly bowing down, with
their faces to the ground, in his presence, they
kissed him most reverently, and singing hymns
of praise as they went, they conducted him with
all honour to the Church. Over the Saint as he
walked, a canopy made of wood was supported
by four men walking by his side, lest the holy
Abbot, St. Columba, should be troubled by the
crowd of brethren pressing upon him. At that
very time, a boy attached to the Monastery, who
was mean in dress and look, and hitherto had not
stood well in the opinions of the seniors, conceal-
ing himself as well as he could, came forward
stealthily, that he might touch unperceived even
the hem of the cloak which the blessed man
wore, without his feeling or knowing about it.

132 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

This, however, did not escape the Saint, for he
knew with the eyes of his soul what he could not
see taking place behind him with the eyes of his
body. Stopping therefore suddenly, and putting
out his hand behind him, he seized the boy by
the neck, and bringing him round, set him before
his face. The crowd of bystanders cried out —
'Let him go, let him go; why do you touch that
unfortunate and naughty boy ? ' But the Saint
solemnly uttered these prophetic words from his
pure heart, 'Suffer it to be so now, brethren ! '
Then turning to the boy, who was in the greatest
terror, he said, ' My son, open thy mouth, and
put out thy tongue.' The boy did as he was
bid, and in great alarm opened his mouth and
put out his tongue : the Saint extended to it his
holy hand, and after carefully blessing it, pro-
nounced his prophecy in the following words —
' Though this boy appears to you now very
contemptible and worthless, let no one on that
account despise him. For, from this hour, not
only will he not displease you, but he will give
you every satisfaction. From day to day he
shall advance by degrees in good conduct, and
in the virtue of the soul ; from this day, wisdom
and prudence shall be more and more increased

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 133

in him, and great shall be his progress in this
your community; his tongue shall also receive
from God the gift of both wholesome doctrine
and eloquence.' This was Ernene, son of Crasen,
who was afterwards famous and most highly
honoured in all the Churches of Scotia (Ireland)/'
'And another most delightful narrative there
is, showing this his large-hearted recognition of
goodness everywhere. Once, when he was travel-
ling near Loch Ness, he was suddenly inspired
by the Holy Ghost, and said to the brothers
who accompanied him, "Let us go quickly to
meet the holy angels who have been sent from
the realm of the highest heaven to carry away
with them the soul of a heathen, and now await
our arrival there that we may baptize in due
time, before his death, this man who has pre-
served his natural goodness through all his life
to extreme old age." And having said thus
much, the holy old man hurried his com-
panions as much as he could, and walked before
them till he came to Glen Urquhart ; and here
he found an aged man whose name was Emchat,
who, on hearing the Word of God preached by
the Saint, believed and was baptized, and imme-
diately after, full of joy and safe from evil, and

134 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

accompanied by the angels who came to meet
him, passed to the Lord. His son Krolec also
believed, and was baptized, with all his house.

Another incident is more like an instance of
second sight (or "telepathy"). "At another
time," Adamnan writes, " in the Ionan island (Hy,
now Iona), on a day when the tempest was fierce
and the sea exceedingly boisterous, the Saint, as
he sat in the house, gave orders to his brethren,
saying, ' Prepare the guest-chamber quickly,
and draw water to wash the stranger's feet.'
One of the brethren upon this inquired, ' Who
can cross the Sound safely, narrow though it be,
on so perilous and stormy a day ? ' The Saint,
on hearing this, thus made answer — 'The
Almighty has given a calm, even in this tempest,
to a certain holy and excellent man, who will
arrive here among us before evening.' And lo !
the same day, the ship for which the brethren
had some time been looking out, arrived, accord-
ing to the Saint's prediction, and brought St.
Cainnech."

Again and again he is said to have had this
vision or consciousness of things afar off; of
storms and battles, for instance, leading him to
prayer for those in peril

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 135

Sometimes he would exclaim suddenly, " King
the church-bell, and summon the community to
pray," it might be for King Aidan, his kinsman,
in battle at this moment ; or some one else in
mortal danger.

On another clay, when engaged in his mother-
church, he suddenly cried out with a smile,
" Columbanus has just now set out on a voyage
to us, and is in great danger in the rolling tides
of Breccan's whirlpool. He is sitting at the prow,
and lifting both his hands to heaven ; he is also
blessing that angry and dreadful sea ; but the ship
he is in shall not be wrecked in the storm."

Sometimes it was an intense spiritual percep-
tion of some hidden sin in one present or absent ;
sometimes of the reality or unreality of penitence,
a deep "discerning of spirits," a discrimination
of the motives which led to gifts, and valuing
each gift by the heart of the giver.

" Many presents were laid out in the court of
the monastery, and he was giving the blessing ;
he specially pointed out one gift of a wealthy
man. ' The mercy of God/ he said, ' attendeth
the man who gave this, for his charity is to the
poor, and his munificence.'

" Then he pointed out another of the many

i36 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

gifts, and said, ' Of this wise and avaricious
man's offering I cannot partake until he repent
sincerely of his sin of avarice.'

" Now this saying was quickly circulated
among the crowd, and soon reaching the ears
of Columb, the son of Aid, he ran immediately
to the Saint, and on bended knees repented of
his sin, promising to forsake his former greedy
habits. The Saint bade him rise, and from that
moment he was cured of the fault of greediness,
for he was truly a wise man, as was revealed to
the Saint."

Here is another beautiful story of sympathy
with a penitent.

" Another time the Saint was sitting on the
top of the mountain which overhangs this our
monastery, at some distance from it, and turning
to his attendant Diormit, said to him, ' I am
surprised that a certain ship from Scotia (Ireland)
does not appear sooner : there is on board a
certain wise man who has fallen into a great
crime, but who, with tears of repentance, shall
soon arrive.' Not long after, the attendant, look-
ing to the south, saw the sail of a ship that
was approaching the harbour. When its arrival
was pointed out to the Saint, he got up quickly

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 137

and said, ' Let us go and meet this stranger,
whose sincere penance is accepted by Christ.'
As soon as Feachua came on shore he ran to
meet the Saint, who was coming down to the
shore, and, falling on his knees before him,
lamented most bitterly with wailing and tears, and
there, in the presence of all, made open confession
of his sins. Then the Saint, also shedding tears,
said to him, ' Arise, my son, and be comforted ;
the sins thou hast committed are forgiven thee,
because, as it is written, " a humble and contrite
heart God doth not despise ! " He then arose,
and the Saint received him with great joy."

Another incident reveals his quick perception
of spiritual ripeness and readiness for death.

" One Lord's day a loud cry was heard across
the Sound of Mull. As soon as the Saint heard
it, he said to the brethren who were then with
him, ' Go directly, and bring here before me at
once the strangers that have now arrived from
a distant land.' They went accordingly, and
ferried the strangers across. The Saint, after
embracing them, asked them at once the object
of their journey. In reply, they said, " We are
come to reside with thee for the year.' The
Saint replied, ' With me, as you say, you cannot

138 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

reside for a year unless you first take the Monas-
tic vow.' When those who were present heard
these words addressed to strangers who were
only newly arrived, they wondered very much.
But the elder brother, in answer to the Saint's
remarks, replied, ' Although we never, up to the
present time, entertained the thought before, yet
we shall follow thy advice, believing that it
cometh from God.' What more need I say ?
That very moment they entered the chapel with
the Saint, and on bended knees devoutly took
the Monastic vow. The Saint then turned to his
monks and said, c These two strangers, who are
presenting themselves a living sacrifice to God,
and within a short time are fulfilling a long time
of Christian warfare, shall pass away in peace
this very month to Christ our Lord ! ' The two
brothers, on hearing this, gave thanks to God,
and were led away to the guest-room ; and within
a month both the brothers fell sick and passed
to the Lord with joy."

There is another poetical story of the way in
which, when he had become too old and feeble
to walk far, his spirit seemed to go forth to meet
the sons of his family returning weary from their
hard day's reaping in the fields.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 139

"For as the brethren were returning in the
evening to the monastery, each of them thought
he felt something strange and unusual between
the field on the plain and our monastery, which
however they did not venture to speak of to
each other. And so they had the same feeling
for some days successively at the same place, and
at the same hour in the evening. At last an
elder brother said to the holy Baithen (who had
questioned them), ' As you have ordered me, I
shall tell you what I observed on this spot. For
both in the past few days, and even now, I
perceive the fragrance of such a wonderful odour,
just as if all the flowers on earth were gathered
into one place ; I feel also a glow of heat within
me, not at all painful, but most pleasing, and a
certain unusual and inexpressible joy poured into
my heart, which on a sudden so refreshes and
gladdens me, that I forget grief and weariness
of every kind. Even the load, however weary,
which I carry on my back, is in some mysterious
way so much lightened from this place all the
way to the monastery, that I do not seem to
have any weight to bear.' What need I add ?
All the other reapers in turn declared they had
exactly the same feelings as the first had

140 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

described. All then knelt down together, and
requested of the holy Baithen that he would
learn and inform them of the yet unknown cause
and origin of this wonderful relief which both
he and they were feeling. ' Ye all know/ he
immediately replied, ' our father Columba's
tender care regarding us, and how, ever mindful
of our toil, he is always grieved when we return
later than usual to the monastery. And now
because he cannot come in person on this occa-
sion to meet us, his spirit cometh forth to us as
we walk along, and conveyeth to us such great
comfort.' Having heard these words they raised
their hands to heaven with intense joy as they
knelt, and venerated Christ in the holy and
blessed man."

And we cannot omit a touching incident,
showing his love of his own country, and also
his sympathy with animals.

"For at another time while the Saint was
living on Iona, he called one of the brothers, and
thus addressed him: ' In the morning of the
third day from this date thou must sit down on
the western shores of this island, for a crane
(heron), which is a stranger from the northern
region of Hibernia, and hath been driven about

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 141

by various winds, shall come, weary and fatigued,
after the ninth hour, and lie down before thee
on the beach quite exhausted.. Greet that bird
tenderly, take it to some neighbouring house,
where it may be kindly received, and carefully
nursed and fed by thee, for three days and three
nights. When the crane is refreshed with the
three days' rest, and is unwilling to abide any
longer with us, it shall fly back with renewed
strength to the pleasant part of Scotia (Ireland),
from which it originally hath come. This bird
do I consign to thee with such special care
because it cometh from our own native place.'
The brother obeyed, and on the third day, after
the ninth hour, he watched as he was bid for
the arrival of the expected guest. As soon as
the crane came and alighted on the shore, he
took it up gently in its weakness, and carried
it to a dwelling that was near, where in its
hunger he fed it. On his return to the monastery
in the evening, the saint, without any inquiry,
but as stating a fact, said to him, ' God bless
thee, my child, for thy kind attention to our
foreign visitor, that shall not remain long on
its journey, but return within three days to its
old home.' As the saint predicted, so exactly

142 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

did the event prove, for after being nursed care-
fully for three days, the bird then gently rose
on its wings to a great height in the sight of
its hospitable entertainer, and marking for a little
its path through the air homewards, it directed
its course across the sea to Hibernia, straight
as it could fly, on a calm clay."

There are also previsions of the fate of men
whom he saw to be hypocrites, and of the long
life or speedy death of one and another. Most
of these seem instances of keen spiritual insight
or of his presence through prayer with the
absent. Adamnan himself says, "Though absent
in body, he was present in spirit, and could look
on things that were widely apart, according to
the words of St. Paul, 'He that is joined to the
Lord is one spirit.' Hence this same man of
the Lord, St. Columba, when some of the
brethren would sometimes inquire into the
matter, did not deny but that by some Divine
intuition, and through a wonderful expansion
of his inner soul, he beheld the whole universe
drawn together and laid open to his sight, as
in one ray of the sun."

In Adamnan's Second Book on St. Columba's
miraculous powers there are a few instances of

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 143

denunciation and judgment, and one or two that
look rather like encountering black magic with
white (e. g. conveying miraculous virtue into
waters or pebbles). But the greater number are
manifestations of mercy, healings of the sick, and
also calming of storms on the deep, and in the
hearts of men through faith and prayer. One
story shows a beautiful sympathy with a poor
man the Saint was afraid had scarcely been
treated with sufficient consideration by some
of his monks.

"At another time the Saint sent his monks
to bring from the little farm of a peasant some
bundles of twigs to build a dwelling. When
they returned to the Saint, with a freight-ship
laden with the foresaid bundles of twigs, they
told the Saint that the poor man was very sorry
on account of the loss. The Saint immediately
gave them these directions, saying, ' Lest we do
the man any wrong, take to him from us twice
three measures of barley, and let him sow it now
in his arable land.' According to the Saint's
orders, the corn was sent and delivered over
to the poor man, who was called Findchan,
with the above directions. He received them
with thanks, but asked, 'What good can any

144 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

corn do which is sown after midsummer, against
the nature of this soil ? ' But his wife, on the
contrary, said, ' Do what thou hast been ordered
by the Saint, to whom the Lord will give what-
soever he asketh from Him.' And the mes-
sengers likewise said further, ' St. Columba, who
sent us to thee with this gift, intrusted us also
with this form of instruction regarding thy crop,
saying, " Let that man trust in the omnipotence
of God ; his corn though sown now, when twelve
days of the month of June are passed, shall
be reaped in the beginning of the month of
August." '' The peasant accordingly ploughed
and sowed, and the crop which against hope
he sowed at the above-mentioned time, he
gathered in ripe, to the admiration of all his
neighbours."

There is also a touching story of his care for
his faithful servant Diormit.

"At another time, Diormit, the Saint's faithful
servant, was sick even unto death, and the Saint
went to see him in his extremity. Having in-
voked the name of Christ, he stood at the bed
of the sick man and prayed for him, saying,
'O my Lord, be propitious to me, I beseech
Thee, and take not away the soul of my faithful

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 145

attendant from its dwelling in the flesh whilst
I live.' Having said this, he remained silent
for a short time, and then again he spoke these
words with his sacred mouth, ' My son shall
not only not die at present, but will even live
for many years after my death.' This prayer
of the Saint was heard, for, on the instant that
the Saint's prayer was made, Diormit was restored
to perfect health, and lived also for many years
after St. Columba had passed to the Lord."

There is another story of the effect of his
prayer and counsel on a wife whose heart had
turned against her husband, who was deformed.
She wished to leave him, and professed her
readiness to go on pilgrimage or into a nunnery,
or anything rather than stay with him. But
St. Columba insisted that she had no right to
be a pilgrim or a nun, and would pray for nothing
but that she might love her husband. Which
prayer was answered ; her heart was softened,
"and from that day to the hour of death, the
heart of the wife was firmly cemented with
affection to her husband."

In the Third Book, on the Manifestations of
Angels, there is a story, how on one occasion,
when the Saint seems to have been very deter-

146 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

mined to have his own way about the coronation
of one brother rather than another to be king,
an angel came to him with a book of glass
(apparently a mirror of the will of God), showing
that not the brother he preferred, but another
was the Divinely chosen king. The Saint how-
ever could not at once yield up his will ; and
on three successive nights the angel came and
scourged him on the side, leaving a livid mark,
which remained to the end of his life, until at last
he acquiesced.

Again and again he was conscious of the death
of those dear to him, when at a distance from
him, and saw the angels bearing their souls to
Paradise.

There is also a story of one of his monks
having followed him secretly to the round grassy
hill near the western shore of the island, looking
over the Atlantic, and beheld him surrounded
with white-robed companies of angels who stood
around him as he prayed. This hill is still
called the Angels' Hill in Iona in the language
St. Columba spoke.

And many times, from the church or the cell
in which he was praying, his " family " were
dazzled by the shining of a marvellous brightness

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 147

of heavenly light, which the Saint always forbade
their speaking about.

But once, when he was fasting three days and
three nights in his cell, rays of surpassing bright-
ness were seen streaming through the chinks of
the wattled wooden hut, and through the key-
hole, and from within was caught the music of
spiritual songs such as the listeners had never heard
before. And after that he expressed a wish that
his friend and beloved disciple Baithen could
have been present with him, that he also might
have had these wondrous mysteries explained to
him, and so have had made clear to him many
obscure parts of the sacred Scriptures. But
always, whatever these supernatural illuminations
might mean, his smile was in itself an illumination ;
we often hear of it, radiant, ecstatic, welcoming,
amused. To that family at Iona the unfading
light of " the holy joy ever beaming on his face
revealed the joy and gladness with which the
Holy Spirit filled his inmost soul."

148 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

VI.

LAST YEARS OF ST. COLUMBA (FROM
ADAMNAN'S 'LIFE').

Of another vision of angels whom the Saint saw
coming to meet his soul as if it were about to
leave the body.

At another time, while the blessed man was
living in the Iovan Island (Hy, now Iona), his
holy countenance one day was lighted up sud-
denly with strange transports of joy ; and raising
his eyes to heaven he was filled with delight, and
rejoiced beyond measure. After an interval of
a few seconds, that sweet and enchanting delight
was changed into a mournful sadness. Now, the
two men, who at the same hour were standing at
the door of his hut, which was built on the higher
ground, and were themselves also much afflicted
with him — of whom the one was Lugne Mocublai,
and the other a Saxon named Pilu — asked the
cause of this sudden joy, and of the sorrow which
followed. The Saint said to them, " Go in peace,
and do not ask me now to explain the cause of
either that joy or that sadness." On hearing this
they humbly asked him, kneeling before him in
tears, and with faces sunk to the ground, to grant

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 149

their desire of knowing something concerning
that matter which at that same hour had been
revealed to the Saint. Seeing them so much
afflicted, he said, " On account of my love to you,
I do not wish you to be in sadness ; but you
must first promise me never to disclose to any
one during my life the secret you seek to know."
They made of course the promise at once accord-
ing to his request, and then, when the promise
was made, the venerable man spake to them
thus: " On this very day, thirty years of my
sojourn in Britain have been completed, and
meanwhile for many days past I have been
devoutly asking of my Lord to release me from
my dwelling here at the end of this thirtieth year,
and to call me thither to my heavenly fatherland.
And this was the cause of that joy of mine, of
which in sorrowful mood you ask me. For I
saw the holy angels sent down from the lofty
throne to meet my soul when it is taken from the
flesh. But, behold now they are stopped sud-
denly, and stand on a rock at the other side of
the Sound of our island, evidently being anxious
to come near me and deliver me from the body.
But they are not allowed to come nearer, because,
that thing which God granted me after praying

150 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

with my whole strength — namely, that T might
pass from the world to Him on this day — He
hath changed in a moment in His listening to
the prayers of so many Churches for me. These
Churches have no doubt prayed as the Lord hath
granted, so that, though it is against my ardent
wish, four years from this clay are added for me
to abide in the flesh. Such a sad delay as this
was fitly the cause of the grief to-day. At the
end of these four years, then, which by God's
favour my life is yet to see, I shall pass away
suddenly, without any previous bodily sickness,
and depart with joy to the Lord, accompanied by
His holy angels, who shall come to me at that
hour."

According to these words, which the venerable
man uttered, it is said, with much sorrow and
grief, and even many tears, he afterwards abode
in the flesh for four years.

How our Patron St. Columba passed to the Lord.1

Towards the end of the above-mentioned four
years — and as a true prophet, he knew long before
that his death would follow the close of that

1 St. Adamnan's Life, Book III. chap. xxiv.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 151

period — the old man, worn out with age, went in
a cart one day in the month of May, as we
mentioned in the preceding second book, to visit
some of the brethren who were at work. And
having found them at work on the western side
of the Iovan island (Hy, now lona), he began to
speak to them that day, saying, " During the
paschal solemnities in the month of April now
past, with desire have I desired to depart to
Christ the Lord, as He had allowed me, if I
preferred it. But lest a joyous festival should
be turned for you into mourning, I thought it
better to put off for a little longer the time of my
departure from the world." The beloved monks
all the while they were hearing this sad news
were greatly afflicted, and he endeavoured as well
as he could to cheer them with words of con-
solation. Then having done this, he turned his
face to the east, still seated as he was in his
chariot, and blessed the island with its inhabitants ;
and from that day to the present, as we have
stated in the Book above-mentioned, the venomous
reptiles with the three forked tongues could do
no manner of harm to man or beast. After
uttering these words of blessing the Saint was
carried back to his monastery.

152 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Then again, a few days afterwards, while he
was celebrating the solemn offices of the Mass,
as usual on the Lord's Day, the face of the
venerable man, as his eyes were raised to heaven,
suddenly appeared as if suffused with a ruddy
glow, for, as it is written, " A glad heart maketh
a cheerful countenance." For at that same hour
he alone saw an angel of the Lord hovering
above within the walls of his oratory ; and as the
lovely and tranquil aspect of the holy angels
infuses joy and exultation into the hearts of the
elect, this was the cause of that sudden joy
infused into the blessed man. When those who
were present on the occasion inquired as to the
cause of that joy with which he was evidently
inspired, the Saint, looking upwards, gave them
this reply : " Wonderful and unspeakable is the
subtlety of the angelic nature ! For lo ! an
angel of the Lord, who was sent to demand a
certain deposit dear to God, hath, after looking
down upon us within the church, and blessing
us, returned again through the roof of the
church, without leaving any trace of his passage
out." Thus spoke the Saint. But none of the
bystanders could understand what kind of a
deposit the angel was sent to demand. Our

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 153

patron, however, gave the name of a holy deposit
to his own soul, that had been entrusted to him
by God ; and after an interval of six days from
that time, as shall be related further on, he
departed to the Lord on the night of the Lord's
day.

In the end, then, of this same week, that is
on the day of the Sabbath, the venerable man
and his pious attendant, Diormit, went to bless
the barn which was near at hand. When the
Saint had entered in and blessed it, and two
heaps of winnowed corn that were in it, he gave
expression to his thanks in these words, saying,
" I heartily congratulate you, my beloved monks,
that this year also, if I am obliged to depart from
you, you will have a sufficient supply for the
year."

On hearing this, Diormit, his attendant, began
to feel sad, and said, " This year, at this time,
father, thou very often vexest us by so frequently
making mention of thy leaving us."

But the Saint replied to him, " I have a little
secret address to make to thee, and if thou wilt
promise me faithfully not to reveal it to any one
before my death, I shall be able to speak to thee
with more freedom about my departure." When

154 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

his attendant had on bended knees made the
promise as the Saint desired, the venerable man
thus resumed his address — " This day in the
Holy Scriptures is called the Sabbath, which
means rest. And this day is indeed a Sabbath
to me, for it is the last day of my present labori-
ous life, and on it I rest after the fatigues of my
labours; and this night at midnight, which
commenced! the solemn Lords Day, I shall,
according to the saying of Scripture, go the way
of our fathers. For already my Lord Jesus
Christ deigneth to invite me; and to Him, I
say, in the middle of this night shall I depart, at
His invitation. For so it hath been revealed to
me by the Lord Himself."

The attendant, hearing these sad words, began
to weep bitterly, and the Saint endeavoured to
console him as well as he could.

After this the Saint left the barn, and in going
back to the monastery, rested half-way at a place
where a cross, which was afterwards erected, and
is standing to this day, fixed into a millstone,
may be observed on the roadside. While the
Saint, as I have said, bowed down with old age,
sat there to rest a little, behold there came up to
him a white pack-horse, the same that used; as

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 155

a willing servant, to carry the milk- vessels from
the cowshed to the monastery. It came up to
the Saint and, strange to say, laid its head on his
bosom — inspired, I believe, by God to do so,
as each animal is gifted with the knowledge of
things according to the will of the Creator ; and
knowing that its master was soon about to leave
it, and that it would see him no more, began to
utter plaintive cries, and like a human being, to
shed copious tears on the Saint's bosom, foaming
and greatly wailing. The attendant seeing this,
began to drive the weeping mourner away ; but
the Saint forbade him, saying: "Let it alone,
as it is so fond of me ; let it pour out its bitter
grief into my bosom. Lo ! thou, as thou art
a man, and hast a rational soul, canst know
nothing of my departure hence, except what I
myself have just told you; but to this brute
beast, devoid of reason, the Creator Himself hath
evidently in some way made it known that its
master is going to leave it." And saying this,
the Saint blessed the work-horse, which turned
away from him in sadness.

Then leaving this spot, he ascended the hill
that overlooked! the monastery, and stood for
some little time on its summit ; and as he stood

156 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

there with both hands uplifted, he blessed his
monastery, saying : —

" Small and mean though this place is, yet it
shall be held in great and unusual honour, not
only by Scotic kings and people, but also by
rulers of foreign and barbarous nations, and by
their subjects ; the Saints also even of other
Churches shall regard it with no common
reverence."

After these words, he descended the hill, and
having returned to the monastery, sat in his hut
transcribing the Psalter; and coming to that
verse of the thirty-third psalm (Eng. Vers., Ps.
xxxiv.) where it is written, "They that seek the
Lord shall want no manner of thing that is
good," — " Here," said he, " at the end of the
page, I must stop ; and what follows let Baithene
write."

The last verse he had written was very applic-
able to the Saint who was about to depart, and
to whom eternal goods shall never be wanting ;
while the one that followeth is equally applicable
to the father who succeeded him, the instructor
of his spiritual children: "Come, ye children,
and hearken unto me : I will teach you the fear
of the Lord ; " and indeed he succeeded him as

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 157

recommended by him, not only in teaching, but
also in writing.

Having written the afore-mentioned verse at
the end of the page, the Saint went to the
Church to the nocturnal vigils of the Lord's
Day ; and so soon as this was over, he returned
to his chamber, and spent the remainder of the
night on his bed, where he had a bare flag for his
couch, and for his pillow a stone, which stands to
this day as a kind of monument beside his grave.
While then he was reclining there, he gave his
last instructions to the brethren, in the hearing
of his attendant alone, saying, " These, O my
children, are the last words I address to you, that
ye be at peace, and have unfeigned charity
among yourselves ; and if ye thus follow the
example of the holy fathers, God, the Comforter
of the good, will be your Helper, and I, abiding
with Him, will intercede for you ; and He will
not only give you sufficient to supply the wants
of this present life, but will also bestow on you
the good and eternal rewards which are laid up
for those that keep His commandments." Thus
far have the last words of our venerable patron,
as he was about to leave this weary pilgrimage for
his heavenly country, been preserved for recital

158 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

in our brief narrative. After these words, as the
happy hour of his departure gradually approached,
the Saint became silent. Then as soon as the
bell tolled at midnight, he rose hastily, went to
church, and running more quickly than the rest,
he entered it alone, and knelt down in prayer
beside the altar. At the same moment his
attendant, Diormit, who more slowly followed
him, saw from a distance that the whole interior
of the church was filled with a heavenly light in
the direction of the Saint. And as he drew near
to the door, the same light he had seen, and
which was also seen by a few brethren standing
at a distance, quickly disappeared. Diormit
therefore entering the church, cried out in a
mournful voice, " Where art thou, father ? " And
feeling his way in the darkness, as the brethren
had not yet brought in the lights, he found the
Saint lying before the altar ; and raising him up
a little, he sat down beside him, and laid his holy
head on his bosom. Meanwhile the rest of the
monks ran in hastily in a body with their lights,
and beholding their dying father, burst into
lamentations. And the Saint, as we have been
told by some who were present, even before his
soul departed, opened wide his eyes and looked

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 159

round him from side to side, with a countenance
full of wonderful joy and gladness, no doubt see-
ing the holy angels coming to meet him. Dior-
mit then raised the holy right hand of the Saint,
that he might bless his assembled monks. And
the venerable father himself moved his hand at
the same time, as well as he was able ; that as he
could not in words, while his soul was departing,
he might at least, by the motion of his hand, be
seen to bless his brethren. And having given
them his benediction in this way, he immediately
breathed his last. After his soul had left the
tabernacle of the body, his face still continued
ruddy, and brightened in a wonderful way by his
vision of the angels, and that to such a degree
that he had the appearance, not so much of one
dead, as of one alive and sleeping. Meanwhile
the whole church resounded with loud lamenta-
tions of grief.

y$ >R Tf "W V?

After his holy soul had departed, and the
matin hymns were finished, his sacred body was
carried by the brethren, chanting psalms, from
the church back to his chamber, from which a
little before he had come alive; and his obsequies
were celebrated with all due honour and reverence,

160 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

for three days and as many nights. And when
these sweet praises of God were ended, the vener-
able body of our holy and blessed patron was
wrapped in a clean shroud of fine linen, and being
placed in the coffin prepared for it, was buried
with all due veneration, to rise again with lustrous
and eternal brightness. And now near the close
of this book, we shall relate what hath been told
us by persons cognizant of the facts, regarding
the above-mentioned three days, during which
his obsequies were celebrated in due ecclesiastical
form. It happened on one occasion that a certain
brother speaking with great simplicity in the
presence of the holy and venerable man, said to
him, "After thy death all the people of these
provinces will row across to the Iovan island
(Hy, now Iona), to celebrate thine obsequies, and
will entirely fill it." Hearing this said, the Saint
immediately replied : " No, my child, the event
will not turn out as thou sayest, for a promiscuous
throng of people shall not by any means be able
to come to my obsequies : none but the monks
of my monastery will perform my funeral rites,
and grace the last offices bestowed upon me."
And the fulfilment of this prophecy was brought
about immediately after his death by God's

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 161

Almighty power ; for there arose a storm of wind
without rain, which blew so violently during
those three days and nights of his obsequies, that
it entirely prevented every one from crossing the
Sound in his little boat. And immediately after
the interment of the blessed man, the storm was
quelled at once, the wind ceased, and the whole
sea became calm.

Let the reader therefore think in what and how
great honour our illustrious patron was held by
God, seeing that, while he was still in the mortal
flesh, God was pleased at his prayer to quell the
storms and to calm the seas ; and again, when he
found it necessary, as on the occasion just men-
tioned, the gales of wind arose as he wished, and
the sea was lashed into fury ; and this storm, as
hath been said, was immediately, so soon as his
funeral rites were performed, changed into a great
calm. Such, then, was the end of our illustrious
patron's life, and such is an earnest of all his
merits.

IONA AND ENGLAND.

St. ATDAN.
St. OSWALD.
St. HILDA.
St. COLMAN.
St. CHAD.
St. CUTHBERT,

165

ST. AIDAN.

We come to a new century, and in some
respects to a new spiritual climate. The chief
biographer of the group of Saints who spent
their lives in Christianizing England is not an
adoring disciple, but a candid and generous
opponent. To pass from Adamnan to Bede is
like stepping from the soft crooning of old
poetical songs and stories by a Highland fireside
or the wail or triumph of coronach or march
among Highland hills into a modern library.
You feel in the presence, not of Legend, through
whose lovely halo you have to penetrate to the
fact which is certainly there, but of History, care-
fully weighing values and measuring proportions,
and sifting fact from fancy.

We are still indeed in a land of miracles and
marvels, where the laws of evidence as well as
the laws of gravitation do not weigh against the
conviction that spirit is greater than matter ; that
the unseen world is not less but more real than the
seen ; where visions and prophecies are expected

1 66 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

as the natural phenomena of supernatural life.
But the tone is different. There is in Bede that
quality so rare in any age, or party, of readiness
to believe good, and generous candour to relate
it of people who seriously differ from our own
especial section of thought, — the quality which
makes Bede not only a Saint, but an historian ;
which is perhaps essentially what constitutes
saintliness in a historian, especially an ecclesi-
astical or religious historian, being the quality
apparently most difficult to maintain under his
own peculiar temptations ; the quality which
distinguishes an historian from a religious pam-
phleteer however brilliant, or a mere homilist
however excellent.

Bede carries us back to the words of the earliest
Church history, that of the author of the Acts of
the Apostles : — " Forasmuch as many have taken
in hand to draw up a narrative concerning those
matters which have been fulfilled among us, even
as they delivered them unto us, which from
the beginning were eye-witnesses and ministers of
the Word, it seemed good to me a'so, having
traced the course of all things from the first, to
write unto thee." 1

1 St. Luke i. Revised Version,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 167

Back to St. Luke, and on to the most con-
scientious historical searcher of documents, and
questioner of witnesses and student of geographical
environment in our own times.

In reading Bede we feel that England and
English history have begun, and, in a sense, the
modern world.

We begin with Aidan and Oswald, the great
English King and the great Celtic Missionary.
Their lives are so intertwined that they must be set
in one picture. The type of Oswald's piety is so
essentially that of Iona and of Aidan, and Aidan
so entirely lives in his mission and his disciples.
It seems best to give the beautiful double story
in the words of Bede himself. They make us
hear the accent of the places and races, and
breathe the atmosphere of the times as nothing-
else can.

In 63$, the victory of Heavensfield was won
over Penda, the pagan King of Mercia, and
Aidan came from Iona at Oswald's request. In
654, after the Synod of Whitby, St. Colman,
Aidan's successor, left Northumbria and returned
to Scotland.

In less than twenty years the deep impression
was made on Northumbria, which made it

1 68 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

a centre of Christian missions for the rest of
England.

Of the company of great and good men and
women who brought this about, four are well
known to us — King Oswald, Bishop Aidan,
Bishop Colman, and the Abbess Hilda.

We begin with King Oswald. As much as
possible it seems best to give the story in the
words of Bede himself.

Oswald's early days were spent in banishment
in Scotland, after his father King Ethelfrith the
Ravager's death. It was this which led to all
the good that followed ; for during those years of
exile he must have learned to know the monks
of Iona little more than thirty years after St.
Columba's death. He must have been about
twenty when he first fled with his brothers
to Scotland. It was among the Picts, the con-
verts of St. Columba in Argyleshire and the
Western Isles, that the young princes found
refuge and hospitality. There they were baptized,
and received Christianity according to the Irish
teaching. On Oswald that teaching made an
impression never effaced ; especially, it seems, the
memory of St. Columba himself. All he had
been and done and taught stamped itself deeply

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 169

on his heart and imagination. He must probably
have made the familiar signal from the red rocks
of Mull, and been ferried across to the white
beaches of Iona in one of the coracles of the
monastery. He would have been welcomed in
the guest-chamber, where the tall form and radi-
ant smile and rich, deep voice of Columba used
to greet his guests. He would be shown the
wooden hut, now grown so sacred, where
Columba used to enter and shut the door and
pray to the Father who seeth in secret, which
his presence and other presences which came to
him here, seemed to his disciples to illuminate,
and where the music of the poet's voice was heard
in hymns, his own or those of the Church. He
would see the stones before the altar where St.
Columba was laid, dying, and lifted up his
dying hand in his last benediction. He would
walk to the hill where the angels came around
him, and the many-coloured beach where he
landed in the coracle, and the cairn where he
turned his back on his beloved Iona, and the
little hill (Tor Abb) where he gave his bene-
diction to Iona and all that were to be taught
there.

It would probably be in Iona that he would

i/o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

receive Christian instruction and training as a
catechumen, and be baptized.

And when he was recalled to his own country,
and the weary tumultuous year was over when his
apostate brothers fought and reigned, and " aban-
doned the heavenly kingdom for the earthly,"
which they so soon lost by death, and he himself
became king, he went forth to meet the heathen
King Penda on the field, afterwards called Heaven-
field, by the old Roman wall. And there the
power of lona came on him, and he had the
vision of St. Columba, which encouraged him
for the battle.

It is thus related by Adamnan : " In the
dreadful crash of wars he (Columba) obtained
from God, by the virtue of prayer, that some
kings should be conquered, and others come
off victorious. And such a grace as this he
enjoyed, not only while alive in this world, but
even after his departure from the flesh, as God,
from whom all the Saints derive their honour,
has made him still a victorious and most valiant
champion in the battle. I shall give one example
of especial honour conferred by Almighty God
on this honourable man, the event having
occurred the day before the Saxon prince Oswald

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 171

went forth to fight with Cation (Ceadualla of
Bede), a very valiant King of the Britons. For
as this same King Oswald, after pitching his
camp, in readiness for the battle, was sleeping
one day on a pillow in his tent, he saw St.
Columba in a vision, beaming with angelic
brightness, and of figure so majestic that his
head seemed to touch the clouds. The blessed
man having announced his name to the King,
stood in the midst of the camp, and covered it
all with his brilliant garment, except at one
small distant point ; and at the same time he
uttered those cheering words which the Lord
spake to Jesua Ben Nun before the passage of
the Jordan, after Moses' death, saying, ' Be
strong, and of a good courage ; behold, I shall
be with thee/ &c. Then St. Columba, having
said these words to the King in the vision, added,
1 March out this following night from your
camp to battle, for on this occasion the Lord
has granted to me that your foes shall be put
to flight, that your enemy Cation shall be
delivered into your hands, and that after the
battle you shall return in triumph and have
a happy reign/ The King awakening at these
words, assembled his council and related the

172 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

vision, at which they were all encouraged ; and
so the whole people promised that after the-ir
return from the war, they would believe and
be baptized, for up to that time all that Saxon
land had been wrapt in the darkness of paganism
and ignorance, with the exception of King
Oswald and the twelve men who were baptized
with him during his exile among the Scots.
What more need I say ? On the very next
night, King Oswald, as he had been directed
in the vision, went forth from his camp to battle,
and had a much smaller army than the numerous
hosts opposed to him, yet he obtained from the
Lord, according to His promise, an easy and
decisive victory over King Cation ; and the
conqueror, on his return after the battle, was
ever after established by God as the Bretwalda
of all Britain. I, Adamnan, had this narrative
from the lips of my predecessor, the Abbot
Failhe, who solemnly declared that he had himselt
heard King Oswald relating this same vision to
Segine the Abbot."

"And so with the Cross, the first erected in
Northumbria, erected in the field, and the vision
of St. Columba in his heart, Oswald and his little
army," Bede says, u advanced towards the enemy

Ireland, Scotland, and England. 173

with the first dawn of day, and obtained the
victory, as their faith deserved."

Bede tells the story, thus prefacing it by
speaking of Oswald's exile.

" For all the time that Edwin reigned, the
sons of the aforesaid Ethelfrid, who had reigned
before him, with many of the nobility, lived in
banishment among the Picts or Scots, and were
there instructed according to the doctrine of
the Scots, and received the grace of baptism.
Upon the death of the king (Edwin), their
enemy, they returned home.

" Oswald, one of these sons, a man beloved of
God, King after the death of his brother Eanfrid,
advanced with an army, small indeed in number,
but strengthened with the faith of Christ ; and
the impious commander of the Britons was slain,
though he had most numerous forces, which he
boasted nothing could withstand, at a place in
the English tongue called Denisesburn, that is
Denis's-brook.

" The place is shown to this day, and held in
much veneration, where Oswald, being about to
engage, erected the sign of the holy cross, and
on his knees prayed to God that He would assist
His worshippers in their great distress. It is

174 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

further reported that the cross being made in
haste, and the hole dug in which it was to be
fixed, the King himself, full of faith, laid hold
of it and held it with both his hands, till it
was set fast by throwing in the earth ; and this
clone, raising his voice, he cried to his army,
' Let us all kneel, and jointly beseech the true
and living God Almighty, in His mercy to
defend us from the haughty and fierce enemy ;
for He knows that we have undertaken a just
war for the safety of our nation.' All did as
he commanded. The same Oswald, as soon
as he ascended the throne, being desirous that
all his nation should receive the Christian faith,
whereof he had found happy experience in
vanquishing the barbarians, sent to the elders
of the Scots, among whom himself and his
followers, when in banishment, had received the
sacrament of baptism, desiring they would send
him a bishop, by whose instruction and ministry
the English nation, which he governed, might
be taught the advantages, and receive the
sacraments of the Christian faith. Nor were
they slow in granting his request ; but sent
him Bishop Aidan, a man of singular meekness,
piety, and moderation, zealous in the cause of

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 175

God, though not altogether according to know-
ledge, for he was wont to keep Easter Sunday
according to the custom of his country.

"From (Iona) the aforesaid island and college
of monks, was Aidan sent to instruct the English
nation in Christ, having received the dignity of
a bishop at the time when Segenius. abbot and
priest, presided over that monastery ; whence
among other instructions for life he left the
clergy a most salutary example of abstinence or
continence ; it was the highest commendation of
his doctrine with all men, that he taught no
otherwise than he and his followers had lived, for
he neither sought nor loved anything of this
world, but delighted in distributing immediately
among the poor whatsoever was given him by
the King or rich men of the world. He was
wont to traverse both town and country on foot,
never on horseback, unless compelled by some
urgent necessity ; and wherever in his way he
saw any, either rich or poor, he invited them, if
infidels, to embrace the mystery of the faith, or
if they were believers to strengthen them in the
faith, and to stir them up by words and actions
to alms and good works.

" His course of life was so different from the

176 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

slothfulness of our times, that all those who bore
him company, whether they were shorn monks
or laymen, were employed in meditation, that is,
either in reading the Scriptures or learning psalms.
This was the daily employment of himself and
all those who were with him, wheresoever they
went ; and if it happened, which was but seldom,
that he was invited to eat with the King, he went
with one or two clerks, and having taken a small
repast made haste to be gone with them either
to read or to write. At that time many religious
men and women, stirred up by his example,
adopted the custom of fasting on Wednesdays
and Fridays, till the ninth hour, throughout the
year, except during the fifty days after Easter.
He never gave money to the powerful men of
the world, but only meat, if he happened to
entertain them ; and on the contrary, whatsoever
gifts of money he received from the rich, he
either distributed them, as has been said, to the
use of the poor, or bestowed them in ransoming
such as had been wrongfully sold for slaves.
Moreover, he afterwards made many of those
he had ransomed his disciples, and after having
taught and instructed them, advanced them to
the order of priesthood.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 177

" It is reported, that when King Oswald had
asked a bishop of the Scots to administer the
word of faith to him and his nation, there was
first sent to him another man of more austere
disposition, who meeting with no success, and
being unregarded by the English people, returned
home, and in an assembly of the elders reported,
that he had not been able to do any good to the
nation he had been sent to preach to, because
they were uncivilized men and of a stubborn and
barbarous disposition. They, as it testified, in
a great council seriously debated what was to be
clone, being desirous that the nation should
receive the salvation it demanded, and grieving
that they had not received the preacher sent to
them. Then said Aidan, who was also present
in the council, to the priest then spoken of:
' I am of opinion, brother, that you were more
severe to your unlearned hearers than you ought
to have been, and did not at first, conformably
to the apostolic rule, give them the milk of more
easy doctrine, till being by degrees nourished
with the Word of God, they should be capable
of greater perfection, and be able to practise
God's sublimer precepts.' Having heard these
words, all present began diligently to weigh what

178 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

he had said, and presently concluded, that he
deserved to be made a bishop, and ought to be
sent to instruct the incredulous and unlearned,
since he was found to be endued with singular
discretion, which is the mother of other virtues,
and accordingly being ordained, they sent him
to their friend King Oswald to preach, and he,
as time proved, afterwards appeared to possess all
other virtues, as well as the discretion for which
he was before remarkable.

"King Oswald, with the nation of the English
which he governed, being instructed by the
teaching of this most reverend prelate, not only
learned to hope for a heavenly kingdom un-
known to his progenitors, but also obtained of
the same one Almighty God, who made heaven
and earth, larger earthly kingdoms than any of
his ancestors. In short, he brought under his
dominion all the nations and provinces of Britain,
which are divided into four languages, viz. the
Britons, the Picts, the Scots, and the English.
When raised to that height of dominion, wonder-
ful to relate, he always continued humble, affable,
and generous to the poor and strangers.

" In short, it is reported that when he was once
sitting at dinner on the holy day of Easter, with

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 179

the aforesaid bishop, a silver dish full of dainties
before him, and they were just ready to bless the
bread, the servant whom he had appointed to
relieve the poor came in on a sudden, and told
the King that a great multitude of needy persons
from all parts were sitting in the streets begging
some alms of the King; he immediately ordered
the meat set before him to be carried to the poor,
and the dish to be cut in pieces and divided
among them. At which sight the bishop, who
sat by him, much taken with such an act of piety,
laid hold of his right hand and said, ' May this
hand never grow old.'

"On the arrival of the bishop, the King ap-
pointed him his episcopal see in the isle of Linclis-
farne, as he desired. Which place, as the tide flows
and ebbs twice a day, is enclosed by the waves of
the sea like an island ; and again twice in the day,
when the shore is left dry, becomes contiguous
to the land. The King also humbly and willingly
in all cases giving ear to his admonitions, in-
dustriously applied himself to build and extend
the Church of Christ in his kingdom; wherein,
the bishop, who was not skilful in the English
tongue, preached the gospel ; it was most delight-
ful to see the King himself interpreting the Word

180 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

of God to his commanders and ministers, for he
had perfectly learned the language of the Scots
during his long banishment. From that time
many of the Scots came daily into Britain, and
with great devotion preached the Word to those
provinces of the English over which King Oswald
reigned, and those among them that had received
priest's orders, administered to them the grace of
baptism. Churches were built in several places ;
the people joyfully flocked together to hear the
Word ; money and lands were given of the King's
bounty to build monasteries ; the English, great
and small, were, by their Scottish masters, in-
structed in the rules and observances of regular
discipline, for most of them that came to preach
were monks. Bishop Aidan was himself a monk
of the island of Hii, whose monastery was for a
long time the chief of almost all those of the
northern Scots, and all those of the Picts, and
had the direction of their people. That island
belongs to Britain, being divided from it by a
small area of the sea, but had been long since
given by the Picts, who inhabit those parts of
Britain, to the Scottish monks, because they had
received the faith of Christ through their
preaching."

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 1S1

So for nine years the Christian king and
bishop worked together ; " Oswald, the most
Christian King of the Northumbrians " (Bede
writes), " reigned nine years. After which period
he was killed in a great battle, by the same pagan
nation and pagan King of the Mercians " (Penda)
"who had slain his predecessor Edwin, at a
place called in the English tongue Haversfleld,
in the thirty-eighth year of his age, on the fifth
day of the month of August."

And then, after showing how his holiness was
proved by the miracles wrought after his death,
Bede says — " For it is not to be wondered that the
prayers of that king who was then reigning with
our Lord should be very efficacious with Him,
since he, whilst yet governing his temporal king-
dom, was also wont to pray and take more pains
for that which is eternal. In short, it is often
reported that he continued in prayer from the
hour of morning thanksgiving till it was day;
and that by reason of his constant custom of
praying and giving thanks to God, he was wont
always, wherever he sate, to hold his hands
turned up on his knees. It is also given out,
and become a proverb, 'That he ended his life
in prayer ' ; for when he was beset with weapons

i82 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

and enemies" (at the battle of Haversfield), " he
perceived he must immediately be killed, and
prayed to God for the souls of his army.
Whence it is proverbially said — ' Lord have
mercy on their souls, said Oswald, as he Jell to the
ground.

" Every inch a king," indeed, from first to
last ; from first to last living and dying, not for
himself, but for his people, directing the nation,
consolidating the various tribes into a nation, a
nation gathered around its king, a nation inter-
woven with the Church ; restraining all evil,
promoting all good, on his throne ever with his
"Father who seeth in secret," as in an oratory ;
in his most secret prayers always with his people
— " Our Father, who art in heaven " ; at his
banquet-table never out of hearing of the cry
of the Lazarus at the gate, sending when needed
his own meat to be their food, his own silver
dish to be their alms.

It must have been with a heart heavy with a
weight of sorrow and also of unutterably thankful
joy, that Aidan heard of his royal disciple and
son's dying words. Aidan survived him nine
years (642 — -651). During those years the
kingdom was divided between Oswald's younger

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 183

brother Osric, and Oswin, nephew of the previous
King Edwin, "a man of wonderful piety and
devotion, who governed the Province of Deira
seven years in great prosperity, and was himself
beloved of all men."

It was evidently with Oswin, not with Oswald's
brother Oswy, that Aidan had sympathy.
" Oswin was of a graceful aspect, and tall of
stature, affable of discourse, courteous in be-
haviour, and most bountiful as well to the
ignoble as the noble ; so that he was beloved
by all men for his qualities of body and mind,
and persons of the first rank came from almost
all provinces to serve him. Among other endow-
ments, if I may so express it, humility is said to
have been the greatest."

With this second saintly, generous young
king, Aidan must have felt once more as if
Oswald were with him still ; and this friendship
between young and old, the kingly son and
saintly father, lasted almost to the end of Aidan's
life.

Most touching is the instance Bede gives of
the King's humility and the bishop's affection —

" Oswin had given an extraordinarily fine
horse to Bishop Aidan, which he might either

1 84 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

use in crossing rivers, or in performing a journey
of any urgent necessity, though he was wont to
travel ordinarily on foot. Some short time after,
a poor man meeting him, and asking alms, he
immediately dismounted, and ordered the horse,
with all his royal furniture, to be given to the
beggar ; for he was very compassionate, a great
friend to the poor, and as it were the father of
the wretched. This being told to the King,
when they were going in to dinner, he said to the
bishop, ' Why would you, my lord bishop, give
the poor man that royal horse, which was neces-
sary for your use ? Had we not many other
horses of less value, and of other sorts, which
would have been good enough to give to the
poor, and not to give that horse, which I had
particularly chosen for yourself? ' To whom
the bishop instantly answered, ' What is it you
say, O king ? Is that foal of a mare more dear
to you than the son of God ? ' Upon this they
went in to dinner, and the bishop sat in his place ;
but the King, who was come from hunting, stood
warming himself with his attendants at the fire.
Then on a sudden, whilst he was warming him-
self, calling to mind what the bishop had said
to him, he ungirt his sword, and gave it to a

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 185

servant, and in a hasty manner fell clown at the
bishop's feet beseeching him to forgive him.
' For from this time forward,' said he, ' I will
never speak any more of this, nor will I judge
of what or how much of our money you shall
give to the sons of God/ The bishop was much
moved at this sight, and starting up, raised him,
saying, ' He was entirely reconciled to him, if
he would sit down to his meat and lay aside all
sorrow.' The King at the bishop's command
and request beginning to be merry, the bishop
on the other hand grew so melancholy as to shed
tears. His priest then asking him in the lan-
guage of his country, which the King and his
servants did not understand, why he wept, 6 I
know,' said he, ' that the King will not live long ;
for I never before saw so humble a king; whence
I conclude that he will soon be snatched out of
this life, because this nation is not worthy of
such a ruler/ Not long after, the bishop's pre-
diction was fulfilled by the King's death, as has
been said above. But Bishop Aidan himself was
also taken out of this world twelve days after the
King he loved, on the 31st of August, to receive
the eternal reward of his labours from our Lord."
Oswy apparently would not brook to be on a

1 86 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

common or neighbouring throne with one so
popular. Oswald's kingdom seems to have been
shared between them; war arose between Oswin's
Province of Deira and Oswy's of Bernicia and
the rest of Northumbria.

Oswin, feeling his forces inadequate, disbanded
them, apparently not choosing to expose his
followers to a defeat, in order to assert his own
rights. " He himself, with only one trusty
soldier, withdrew and lay concealed in the house
of Earl Hinwald, whom he believed to be his
most assured friend. But alas ! it was otherwise,
and Oswy in a detestable manner, by the hands
of his commander, slew him and the soldier afore-
said." " Cruelly murdered him," it is said in
another place ; very strong words from the
gentle Bede, especially when we remember that
it was Oswy who convened the great Synod
of Whitby, and gave the final decision against
the Celtic monks which sent St. Colman out of
Northumbria, and gave the victory to Wilfrid
and the Roman authority which Bede so strongly
supported.

This second death, the cutting off of this
second royal, holy, loving life, seems to have given
the death-blow to Aidan. He only survived the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 187

murdered Oswin twelve days. " Aidan was in
the King's country house, not far from the city (of
Bamborough), at the time when death separated
him from his body, after he had been bishop
sixteen years ; for having a church and a chamber
there, he was wont often to go and stay there "
(from the island of Lindisfarne close by and in
sight), " and to make excursions to preach in the
country round about, which he likewise did at
other of the King's country seats, having nothing
of his own besides his church and a few fields
about it. When he was sick, they set up a tent
close to the wall at the west end of the church, by
which it happened that he gave up the ghost,
leaning against a post that was on the outside to
strengthen the wall. He died in the 21st year of
his episcopacy, the last day of the month of
August. His body was thence translated to
Lindisfarne, and buried in the churchyard be-
longing to the brethren."

This was in 642, two years before the Synod
convened by King Oswy at Whitby, so that
Aidan was spared the bewildering pain, as it
would seem it must have been, of seeing his work
broken up, and his faithful monks and disciples,
Celtic and English, driven to abandon the land

1 88 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

of his labours, by the King who had murdered
his beloved and saintly Oswin.

Afterwards, Bede tells us, a monastery was
built at the place where Oswin was slain, where
prayers were to be offered up daily for the souls
of the two kings — him who had been murdered,
and him who commanded him to be killed.

But this Aidan did not stay in this world, nor
did his disciples stay in this country, to see.

Bede records two miracles believed to have been
wrought by Aidan's prayers — one by means of
pouring oil on a stormy sea ; the other by a
sudden change of wind, such as happened when
the sea was threatening the dykes at the siege of
Leyden, when the city was saved from Alva.

The delight of these stories to us is the gen-
erous testimony of Bede to Aidan's character,
and the universal honour in which it was held.
In all ecclesiastical history there are few things
nobler than this witness of the father of English
history against the king who had brought about
the victory of his own party, and for the Saint
from whom he differed.

" How great the merits of Aidan were, was made
manifest by the all-seeing Judge, with the testi-
mony of miracles, whereof it wall suffice to men-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 189

tion three as a memorial. A certain priest whose
name was Utta, a man of great gravity and
sincerity, and on that account honoured by
all men, even the princes of the world, being
ordered to Kent, to bring from thence, as wife
for King Oswy, Eanfleda, the daughter of King-
Edwin, who had been carried thither when her
father was killed ; and intending to go thither by
land, but to return with the virgin by sea, re-
paired to Bishop Aidan, entreating him to offer
up his prayers to our Lord for him and his
company, who were then to set out on their
journey. He, blessing and recommending them
to our Lord, at the same time gave them some
holy oil, saying, ' I know that when you go
abroad, you will meet with a storm and contrary
wind, but do you remember to cast this oil I give
you into the sea, and the wind shall cease imme-
diately ; and you will have pleasant calm weather,
and return home safe.' All which fell out as the
bishop had predicted. For, in the first place, the
winds raging, the sailors endeavoured to ride it
out at anchor, but all to no purpose ; for the sea
breaking in on all sides, and the ship beginning
to be filled with water, they all concluded that
certain death was at hand ; the priest at last, re-

190 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

membering the bishop's uords, laid hold of the
phial, and cast some of the oil into the sea, which,
as had been foretold, became presently calm.
Thus it came to pass that the man of God, by
the spirit of prophecy, foretold the storm that
was to happen, and by virtue of the same spirit,
though absent, appeased the same. Which
miracle was not told me by a person of little
credit, but by Cynemund, a most faithful priest
of our church, who declared that it was related to
him by Utta, the priest, on and by whom the
same was wrought.

* * # # #

" Another notable miracle of the same father is
related by many such as were likely to have
knowledge thereof; for during the time that he
was bishop, the hostile army of the Mercians,
under the command of Penda, cruelly ravaged
the country of the Northumbrians far and near,
even to the royal city ; which has its name from
Bebba, formerly its queen. Not being able to
enter it by force, or by a long siege, he endeav-
oured to burn it ; and having destroyed all the
villages in the neighbourhood of the city, he
brought to it an immense quantity of planks,
beams, wattles, and thatch, wherewith he encom-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 191

passed the place to a great height on the land
side, and when the wind set upon it, he fired the
mass, designing to burn the town.

" At that time the most reverend Bishop Aidan
resided in the isle of Fame, which is nearly two
miles from the city ; for thither he was wont
often to retire to pray in private, that he might
be undisturbed. Indeed this solitary residence of
his is to this day shown in that island. When he
saw the flames of fire and the smoke carried by
the boisterous wind above the city walls, he is
reported, with eyes and hands lifted up to heaven,
to have said, ' Behold, Lord, how great mischief
Penda does ! '■ — which words were hardly uttered,
when the wind immediately turning from the
city, drove back the flames upon those who had
kindled them, so that some being hurt, and all
frightened, they forbore any further attempts
against the city, which they perceived was pro-
tected by the hand of God."

Bishop Lightfoot writes l : — " I know no
nobler type of the missionary spirit than Aidan.
His character, as it appears through the haze
of antiquity, is almost absolutely faultless.
Doubtless this haze may have obscured some
1 Leaders of the Northern Church, p. 44.

192 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.

imperfections which a clearer atmosphere and
a nearer view would have enabled us to de-
tect. But we cannot have been misled as to the
main lineaments of the man. Measuring him
side by side with other great missionaries of
those days, Augustine of Canterbury, or Wilfrid
of York, or Cuthbert of his own Lindisfarne, we
are struck with the singular sweetness and
breadth and sympathy of his character. He had
all the virtues of his Celtic race, without any of
its faults. A comparison with his own spiritual
forefather — the eager, headstrong, irascible, affec-
tionate, penitent, patriotic, self- devoted Columba,
the most romantic and attractive of all early
mediaeval saints — will justify this sentiment. He
was tender, sympathetic, adventurous, self-sacri-
ficing, but he was patient, steadfast, calm, appre-
ciative, discreet before all things. This grace of
discretion, writes Bede, ' marked him out for the
Northumbrian mission; but when the time came
he was found to be adorned with every other
excellence.' This ancient historian never tires of
his theme, when he is praising Aid an."

193

ST. HILDA.
I.

The next of the glorious company who drew
their inspiration and received their training from
Iona, must naturally be the royal lady who
founded the monastery of Streaneshalch,1 on
the cliffs which look across the Northern Sea.

We will begin with what Bede tells us about
her, in his own words. " In the year of the
Incarnation of our Lord 680, the most religious
servant of Christ, Hilda, Abbess of the monastery
that is called Streaneshalch, as above-mentioned,
after having performed many heavenly works on
earth, passed from thence to receive the rewards
of the heavenly life, on November 17, at the
age of sixty-six years ; the first thirty-three of
which she spent living most nobly in the secular
habit ; and more nobly dedicated the remaining
half to our Lord in a monastic life. For she
was nobly born, being the daughter of Hereric,
1 Whitby.

194 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

nephew to King Edwin, with which king she also
embraced the faith and mysteries of Christ, at
the preaching of Paulinus, the first bishop of the
Northumbrians of blessed memory, and preserved
the same undefiled till she attained the sight of
him in heaven.

" Resolving to quit the secular habit, and to
serve Him alone, she withdrew into the province
of the East Angles, for she was allied to the
King ; being desirous to pass over from England
into France, to forsake her native country, and all
she had, and so to live a stranger for our Lord
in the monastery of Cale, that she might with
more ease attain to the eternal kingdom in
heaven ; because her sister Heresuid, mother to
Aldwulf, King of the East Angles, at that time
living in the same monastery, under regular
discipline, was waiting for her eternal reward.
Being led by her example, she continued a whole
year in the aforesaid province, with the design
of going abroad; afterwards, Bishop Aidan being
recalled home, he gave her the land of one
family on the north side of the river Wear ;
where for a year she also led a monastic life, with
very few companions.

" After this she was made Abbess in the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 195

monastery called Heruteu,1 which monastery had
been founded, not long before, by the religious
servant of Christ, Heiu, who is said to have been
the first woman that in the province of the
Northumbrians took upon her the habit and life
of a nun, being consecrated by Bishop Aidan;
but she, soon after she had founded that
monastery, went away to the city of Calcacestir,
and there fixed her dwelling. Hilda, the servant
of Christ, being set over that monastery, began
immediately to reduce things to a regular system,
according as she had been instructed by learned
men ; for Bishop Aidan and other religious men
that knew her and loved her, frequently visited
and diligently instructed her, because of her
innate wisdom and inclination to the service of
God. When she had for some years governed
this monastery, wholly intent upon establishing a
regular life, it happened that she also undertook
either to build or to arrange a monastery under
the same regular discipline as she had done the
former; and taught there the strict observance
of justice, piety, chastity, and other virtues, and
particularly of peace and charity ; so that, after
the example of the primitive Church, no person
1 Hartlepool.

196 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

there was rich, and none poor, all being in
common to all, and none having any property.
Her prudence was so great, that not only in-
different persons, but even kings and princes, as
occasion offered, asked and received her advice ;
she obliged those who were under her direction to
attend so much to reading of the Holy Scriptures,
and to exercise themselves so much in works of
justice, that many might be there found fit for
ecclesiastical duties, and to serve at the altar.

"In short, we afterwards saw five bishops taken
out of that monastery, and all of them men of
merit and sanctity, whose names were Bosa,
Hedda, Oftfor, John, and Wilfrid. We have
above taken notice that the first of them was con-
secrated bishop at York ; of the second it is to
be observed he was appointed Bishop of Dor-
chester. Of the two last we shall speak hereafter,
as they were consecrated — the first was Bishop of
Hagulstad, the second of the Church of York;
of the third we will here take notice that, having
applied himself to the reading and observation of
the Scriptures in both the monasteries of Hilda, at
length being desirous to attain to greater perfec-
tion, he went into Kent, to Archbishop Theodore,
of blessed memory ; where having spent some

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 197

more time in sacred studies, he also resolved to
go to Rome, which in those clays was reckoned
of great moment. Returning thence into Britain,
he took his way into the province of the Wiccii,
where King Osric then ruled, and continued'
there a long time, preaching the word of faith,
and making himself an example of good life to
all who saw and heard him. At the same time
Bosel, the bishop of that province, laboured
under such weakness of body, that he could not
perform the episcopal functions ; for which reason
the Oftfor was, by universal consent, chosen
bishop in his stead, and by order of King
Ethelred, consecrated by Bishop Wilfrid, of
blessed memory, who was then bishop of the
Midland Angles, because Archbishop Theodore
was dead, and no other bishop ordained in his
place. Before the aforesaid man of God, Bosel,
Tatfrid, a most learned and industrious man, and
of excellent ability, had been chosen bishop
there from the same Abbess's monastery, but
had been snatched away by an untimely death,
before he could be ordained.

" Thus this servant of Christ, Abbess Hilda,
whom all that knew her called mother, for her
singular piety and grace, was not only an example

193 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

of good life to those who lived in her monastery,
but afforded occasion of amendment and salva-
tion to many who lived at a distance, to whom
the fame was brought of her industry and virtue ;
for it was necessary that the dream which her
mother Bregusuit had during her infancy should
be fulfilled. At the time that her husband,
Hereric, lived in banishment under Cerdic, King
of the Britons, where he was also poisoned, she
fancied in a dream that she was seeking for him
most carefully, and could find no sign of him
anywhere ; but after having used all her industry
to seek him, she found a most precious jewel
under her garment, which, whilst she was looking
on it very attentively, cast such a light as spread
itself throughout all Britain ; which dream was
brought to pass in her daughter that we speak
of, whose life was a bright example, not only to
herself, but to all who desired to live well."

II.

The next extract brings St. Hilda before us in
another character, as the discoverer of the poet
Caedmon, and in this way the first pioneer and
patron of English literature.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 199

" There was in this Abbess's monastery a certain
brother, particularly remarkable for the grace of
God, who was wont to make pious and religious
verses, so that whatever was interpreted to him
out of the Scriptures, he soon after put the same
into poetical expressions of much sweetness and
humility, in English, which was his native
language. By his verses the minds of many
were often excited to despise the world, and to
aspire to heaven. Others after him attempted, in
the English nation, to compose religious poems ;
but none could ever compare with him, for he
did not learn the art of poetry from men, but
from God, for which reason he never could com-
pose any trivial or vain poem, but only those
which relate to religion suited his religious
tongue, for having lived in a secular habit till he
was well advanced in years, he had never learned
anything of versifying ; for which reason, being
sometimes at entertainments, where it was agreed
for the sake of mirth that all present should sing
in their turns, when he saw the instrument come
towards him, he rose up from the table and
returned home.

" Having done so at a certain time, and gone
out of the house where the entertainment was?

2oo EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

to the stable, where he had to take care of the
horses that night, he there composed himself to
rest at the proper time; a person appeared to
him in his sleep, and saluting him by his name,
said, ' Casdmon, sing some song to me.' He
answered, ' I cannot sing ; for that was the
reason why I left the entertainment and retired
to this place because I could not sing.' The
other who talked to him replied, ' However, you
shall sing.' 'What shall I sing?' rejoined he.
' Sing the beginning of created beings,' said the
other. Thereupon he presently began to sing-
verses to the praise of God, which he had never
heard, the purport whereof was thus : — ' We are
now to praise the Maker of the heavenly king-
dom, the power of the Creator and His counsel,
the deeds of the Father of Glory. How He,
being the Eternal God, became the author of all
miracles, who first, as almighty preserver of the
human race, created heaven for the sons of men
as the roof of the house, and next the earth.'
This is the sense, but not the words, in order as
he sang them in his sleep : for verses, though
never so well composed, cannot be literally trans-
lated out of one language into another, without
losing much of their beauty and loftiness.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 201

Awaking from his sleep, he remembered all that
he had sung in his dream, and soon added much
more to the same effect in verse worthy of the
Deity.

"In the morning he came to the steward, his
superior, and having acquainted him with the
gift he had received, was conducted to the
Abbess, by whom he was ordered, in the
presence of many learned men, to tell his dream,
and repeat the verses, that they might all give
their judgment what it was, and whence his verse
proceeded. They all concluded that heavenly
grace had been conferred on him by our Lord.
They expounded to him a passage in Holy
Writ, either historical or doctrinal, ordering him,
if he could, to put the same into verse. Having
undertaken it he went away, and returning the
next morning, gave it to them composed in most
excellent verse ; whereupon the Abbess, embrac-
ing the grace of God in the man, instructed him
to quit the secular habit, and take upon him the
monastic life; which being accordingly done, she
associated him to the rest of the brethren in her
monastery, and ordered that he should be taught
the whole series of sacred history. Thus Caxlmon,
keeping in mind all he heard, and as it were

202 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

chewing the cud, converted the same into most
harmonious verse, and sweetly repeating the same,
made his masters in their turn his hearers. He
sang the creation of the world, the origin of
man, and all the history of Genesis ; and made
many verses on the departure of the children of
Israel out of Egypt, and their entering into the
land of promise, with many other histories from
Holy Writ, the incarnation, passion, resurrection
of our Lord, and His ascension into heaven ; the
coming of the Holy Ghost, and the preaching of
the Apostles ; also the terror of future judgment,
the horror of the pains of hell, and the delights
of heaven ; besides many more about the Divine
benefits and judgments, by which he endeavoured
to turn away all men from the love of vice, and
to excite them in the love and application to
good actions, for he was a very religious man,
humbly submissive to regular discipline, but full
of zeal against those who behaved themselves
otherwise, for which reason he ended his life
happily."

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 20;

III.

THE SYNOD AT WHITBY.

There have been many great Queens and
great Abbesses, and not a few as good as great.
But seldom has a higher place been assigned to
any woman than that of the Northumbrian Hilda,
and never, it would seem, has a high place been
more nobly filled. True woman, true English-
woman, true Princess through all her monastic
vocation and ecclesiastical rank. "Mother" was
the name which lingered in her people's hearts
when they thought of her. Unfalteringly true
to her convictions, loyal to death to her early
friends, open in heart and mind to every gift
she could cultivate, to every need she could
supply, she remains bound up for ever with
Iona and its Celtic Saints, ana yet presides
like one of the old Teutonic Norns at the
Fountain of Life for her own people, the fountain
of English Literature and English Christianity.

The Synod of Whitby was convened in her
great Abbey. Though her heart was with the
defeated party, and her comfort and support
always fervently and openly on their side, she

204 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

does not seem to have fallen into vain strife
with the authority which prevailed.

Only, one likes to see, that Etheldreda when
flying, by Wilfrid's secret sanction, from the
husband who loved her with such chivalrous
honour, did not seek her aunt Hilda's monastery,
not apparently having confidence in her sym-
pathy, devoted nun and generous Mother as
she was. Indeed to Hilda monasticism meant
primarily spiritual motherhood.

It was at her monastery at Whitby that in
654 the great Synod was held to settle the
question of the time for celebrating Easter.

Twenty-seven years before, the Council of wise
men had been summoned by King Edwin at
York in heathen Northumbria to decide between
Christianity and Paganism. The Italian Bishop
Paulinus, with Queen Ethelberga from Christian
Kent, Christianized through the Roman mission,
had spoken there to the nobles before King
Edwin. "Tall of stature, a little stooping, his
hair black, his visage meagre, his nose slender
and aquiline, his aspect both venerable and
majestic." It was there that the nation decided
for Christianity, and that the two grounds, high
and low, for embracing the new religion were so

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 205

vividly stated by one of the King's chief men,
and by Coifi the heathen priest.

Coifi, the chief of the priests, taking with
brutal frankness the low ground, said, "Consider,
O King, this new religion, for I verily declare the
religion we have hitherto professed has no virtue
in it. For none of your people has applied
himself more diligently to the worship of our
gods than I ; and yet there are many others who
receive greater favours from you, and are more
preferred than I, and are more prosperous in all
their undertakings. Now if the gods were good
for anything, they would rather forward me who
have been more careful to serve them."

The King's counsellor said : " The present life
of man, O King, seems to me in comparison
of that which is unknown to us, like to the
swift flight of a sparrow through the room where
you sit at supper in winter, with your com-
manders and ministers, and a good fire in the
midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow bewail
abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door,
and immediately out at another, whilst he is
within is safe from the wintry storm, but after
a brief space of fair weather he immediately
vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter

206 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

from which he had emerged. So this life of
man appears for a short space ; but of what
went before, or of what is to follow, we are
utterly ignorant. If therefore this new doctrine
contains something more certain, it seems justly
to deserve to be followed."

So, from Socrates, in the PJuedo, after the
poison cup, to this fellow-countryman of our
own, have the true hearts yearned for the " raft "
— the launch into the immortal life.

Then Coifi rose a little to the higher level,
and said the truth of the new preaching could
evidently confer the gifts of life and salvation
and eternal happiness ; and, as the pagan high
priest, he proposed, himself, to profane the temple,
himself cast the challenging spears, and com-
manded his companions to burn the idols and
the temple with fire.

And so, very rapidly, king, nobles, and
common people received Christianity; and also
very rapidly, on the same lower ground, aban-
doned it again, when eight years afterwards
King Edwin was defeated and slain by the
heathen Penda at the battle of Heathfield.

Some, no doubt, who had believed on the
higher ground, preserved their faith. But the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 207

Italian bishop and the Christian queen fled to
Kent, and we know how two years afterwards
King Oswald sent for Aidan from Iona, and the
conversion of Northumbria had to be begun
again. For more than twenty years the work
of Aidan and the Iona missionaries had gone
steadily on, and Northumbria was Christian.

But Aidan was dead, and Oswald was dead,
and another king had arisen, not like Oswald
or the gentle Oswin whom he had " cruelly
murdered," but all the more perhaps zealous for
orthodoxy, and anxious not to add a mistake
to a crime. The question now to be decided
was not whether Christ was the Redeemer, and
was risen from the dead, but whether His
Resurrection should be commemorated at one
time of the year or another ; whether the
Celtic monks, to whom Northumbria owed her
Christianity, who kept to one tradition, or Rome
and the rest of Christendom, who held to the
other, should be followed. They began the
proceedings by observing that it behoved those
who served God to observe the same rule of
life ; to inquire which was the truest tradition.

Bishop Wilfrid, the advocate for Rome, suc-
ceeded in narrowing the question to the relative

2o8 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

authority of St. Peter and St. Columba. "True,
St. Columba," he said, " may be a holy man,
and powerful in miracles, yet would he be pre-
ferred before the most blessed prince of the
Apostles, to whom our Lord said, 'Thou art
Peter, and to thee I will give the keys of the
kingdom of heaven ' ? "

Then the King said, " Is it true, Wilfrid, that
these words were spoken to Peter by our Lord ? "
He answered, " It is true, O King." Then said
he, " Can you show any such power given
to your Columba?" Bishop Colman, Aidan's
successor, answered, " None." Then added the
King, " Do you both agree that these words were
principally directed to Peter, ' that the keys of
heaven were given him by our Lord ' ? " They
both answered, "We do."

Then the King concluded, "And I also say
unto you that he is the door-keeper whom I will
not contradict, but will, as far as I know and am
able in all things, obey his decrees, lest when I
come to the gates of the kingdom of heaven,
there should be none to open them, he being my
adversary who is proved to have the keys."

There is certainly no satire intended by the
gentle and Venerable Bede, but it sounds rather

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 209

like an echo of the old reason of Coifl the pagan
high priest, worldliness merely transformed into
" other worldliness." The disputation being
ended and the victory won, the company broke
up. But the Abbess Hilda remained faithful to
the saintly Aidan and the holy teachers and
monks of Iona and Lindisfarne.

IV.

" When she had governed this monastery
many years, it pleased Him who has made such
merciful provision for our salvation to give her
holy soul the trial of a long sickness, to the end
that, according to the Apostle's example, her
virtue might be perfected in infirmity. Falling
into a fever, she fell into a violent heat, and was
afflicted with the same for six years continually ;
during all which time, she never failed either to
return thanks to her Maker, or publicly and
privately to instruct the flock committed to her
charge ; for by her own example she admonished
all persons to serve God dutifully in perfect
health, and always to return thanks to Him in
adversity, or bodily infirmity. In the seventh

2io EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

year of her sickness, the distemper turning
inwards, she approached her last day, and about
cock-crowing, having received the holy com-
munion to further her on her way, and called
together the servants of Christ that were within
the same monastery, she admonished them to
preserve evangelical peace among themselves and
with all others ; and as she was making her
speech, she joyfully saw death approaching, or, if
I may speak in the words of our Lord, passed
from death to life.

"That same night it pleased Almighty God, by
a manifest vision, to make known her death in
another monastery at a distance from her, which
she had built that same year, which is called
Hackness. There was in that monastery a
certain nun called Begu, who, having dedicated
her virginity to God, had served Him upwards
of thirty years in monastical conversation. This
nun being then in the dormitory of the sisters,
on a sudden heard the well-known sound of a
bell in the air, which used to awake and call
them to prayers, when any one of them was
taken out of this world ; and opening her eyes,
as she thought, she saw the top of the house
open, and a strong light pour in from above ;

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 211

looking earnestly upon that light, she saw the
soul of the aforesaid servant of God in that same
light, attended and conducted to heaven by
angels. Then awaking and seeing the other
sisters lying round about her, she perceived that
what she had seen was either in a dream or a
vision ; and rising immediately in a great fright,
she ran to the virgin who then presided in the
monastery instead of the Abbess, and whose name
was Frigyth, and with many tears and sighs, told
her that Abbess Hilda, the mother of them all,
had departed this life, and had in her sight
ascended to eternal bliss, and to the company of
the inhabitants of heaven, with a great light and
with angels conducting her. Frigyth having
heard it, awoke all the sisters, and calling them
to the church, admonished them to pray and
sing psalms for her soul ; which they did during
the remainder of the night ; and at break of day
the brothers came with news of her death, from
the place where she had died. They answered
that they knew it before, and then related how
and when they had heard it, by which it appeared
that her death had been revealed to them in a
vision the very same hour that the others said
she had died. Thus it was by Heaven happily

212 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.

ordained that when some saw her departure out
of this world, the others should be acquainted
with her admittance into the spiritual life which
is eternal. These monasteries are about thirteen
miles distant from each other.

" It is also reported that her death was, in a
vision, made known the same night to one of
the holy virgins who loved her most passionately,
in the same monastery where the said servant of
God died. This nun saw her soul ascend to
heaven in the company of angels ; and this she
declared the very same hour that it happened,
to those servants of Christ who were with her,
and awakened them to pray for her soul, even
before the rest of the congregation had heard of
her death. The truth of which was known to
the whole monastery in the morning. This
same nun was at that time with some other
servants of Christ, in the remotest part of the
monastery, where the women newly converted
were wont to be upon trial, till they were
regularly instructed and taken into the society
of the congregation."

21

ST. COLMAN.

We come to the close of the great Celtic
Mission in Northumbria, with Col man.

Thirty years before, at the saintly King Oswald's
request, Aidan had been sent from Iona. And
now, after the Synod at Whitby, the order and
rites of Iona are set aside for those of Rome and
the rest of Western Christendom.

Of St. Colman we know little but his defeat
at Whitby, and his consequent departure from
Lindisfarne, and the testimony Bede gives to his
life and character.

There were forty Irish saints of the name of
Colman, which is said to be a diminutive of
Columbia.

It seems best to give Bede's account in his
own words : — " The disputation being ended, and
the company broken up, Agilbert returned home.
Colman, perceiving that his doctrine was rejected
and his sect despised, took with him such as
would not comply with the Catholic Easter and

214 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

the tonsure (for there was much controversy
about that also), and went into Scotland, to con-
sult what was to be clone in this case. Cedd,
forsaking the practices of the Scots, returned to
his bishopric, having submitted to the Catholic
observance of Easter. This disputation happened
in the year of our Lord's Incarnation, 664, which
was the twenty-second year of the reign of King
Oswy, and the thirtieth of the episcopacy of the
Scots among the English, for Aidan was bishop
seventeen years, Finan ten, and Colman three.

"When Colman had gone back to his own
country, God's servant, Tuda, was made bishop
of the Northumbrians in his place, having been
instructed and ordained bishop among the
Southern Scots, having also the ecclesiastical
tonsure of his crown, according to the custom of
that province, and observing the Catholic time of
Easter. He was a good and religious man, but
governed his church a very short time; he came
out of Scotland whilst Colman was yet bishop,
and, both by word and example, diligently taught
all persons those things that appertain to the
faith and truth. But Eata, who was Abbot of
the Monastery of Melrose, a most reverend and
meek man, was appointed Abbot over the brethren

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 215

that stayed in the church of Lindisfarne, when
the Scots went away ; they say, Colman, upon
his departure, requested and obtained this of
King Oswy, because Eata was one of Aidan's
twelve boys of the English nation, whom he
received when first made bishop there, to be
instructed in Christ; for the King much loved
Bishop Colman on account of his singular discre-
tion. This is the same Eata, who not long after
was made bishop of the same church of Lindis-
farne. Colman carried home with him part of
the bones of the most reverend Father Aidan,
and left part of them in the church where he had
presided, ordering them to be interred in the
sacristy.

" The place which he governed shows how frugal
he and his predecessors were, for there were very
few houses besides the church found at their
departure ; indeed, no more than were barely
sufficient for their daily residence ; they also had
no money, but cattle ; for if they received any
money from rich persons, they immediately gave
it to the poor ; there being no need to gather
money or provide houses for the great men of
the world ; for such never resorted to the church,
except to pray and hear the Word of God. The

216 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

King himself, when opportunity offered, came
only with rive or six servants, and having per-
formed his devotions in the church, departed.
But if they happened to take a repast there, they
were satisfied with only the plain and daily food
of the brethren, and required no more ; for the
whole care of those teachers was to serve God,
not the world, — to feed the soul and not the
belly.

" For this reason, the religious habit was at that
time in great veneration ; so that wheresoever any
clergyman or monk happened to come, he was
joyfully received by all persons, as God's servant,
and if they chanced to meet him upon the way,
they ran to him, and bowing, were glad to be signed
with his hand, or blessed with his mouth. Great
attention was also paid to their exhortations; and
on Sunday they flocked eagerly to the church, or
the monasteries, not to feed their bodies, but to
hear the Word of God ; and if any priest hap-
pened to come into a village, the inhabitants
flocked together to hear from him the Word of
life ; for the priests and clergyman went into the
village on no other account but to preach, bap-
tize, visit the sick, and, in a few words, to take
care of souls : and they were so freed from

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 217

worldly avarice, that none of them received lands
and possessions for building monasteries, unless
they were compelled to do so by the temporal
authorities, which custom was for some time
after observed in all churches of the Northum-
brians. But enough has now been said on this
subject.,,

There is surely an accent of tender regret
in those words of Bede. His ecclesiastical
convictions were with the victors in the Easter
controversy, but his spiritual sympathies seem to
have been, in spite of himself, with the vanquished.

Of the two leaders at Whitby, Wilfrid and
Colman seem to have been very unequal in force
of intellect and personal insight. Of Wilfrid,
Montalembert writes : — " With him we rind no
longer anything of the great monks of the primi-
tive Church, the solitaires of the Thebaic!, nor
even of the solemn and mystical ascetics of Celtic
Christianity. Although he may have known the
aspirations and consolations of the spiritual life,
what predominates with him is not the spiritual
life {I'homme interiear), the man of prayer and
solitude ; it is the man of noise and conflict, the
man of war in the religious life."

There must have been a wonderful charm

2i8 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

about him. He was of noble birth, is said to
have been of noble bearing; fair of face, frank
in speech ; he won the hearts of young and old,
men and women, high and low, from the son of
the King of Northumbria to the royal Abbesses,
Etheldrid and Ebba,and the aged Bishop of Lyons.
" Eloquent/' Montalembert says, " beyond any
Englishman of his time, zealous for literature
and public eudcation, delighting and understand-
ing how to construct great edifices which dazzled
the vast audiences his voice drew to them."
" Of quick and penetrating intelligence, manly and
resolute, ardent and enthusiastic, capable in turn
of waiting and acting, inaccessible to discourage-
ment and fear, born to dwell on the summits
which attract the multitudes, and the lightning
(la Joule et la foudre), he presents to us the
high qualities and the singularities of his people
(with a certain unhappy irritability, and even
a haughty and wounding violence in speech) ;
obstinacy, courage, laborious and indefatigable
energy, determination to struggle to the death
for his honour and his rights. Dieu et man
droit!- — this proud device of England is written
on every page of the life of Wilfrid. He begins
that great line of English Prelates, in turn apos-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 219

tolic and political — St. Dunstan, St. Lanfranc, St.
Anselm, St. Thomas Becket." And yet Monta-
lembert, rejoicing in what he accomplished, says —
"It is incontestable that he received no support
from the great and holy monks who were his
contemporaries ; not only the illustrious Abbess
Hilda, protectress of the Celtic rite, but neither
Benedict Biscop, as Roman in heart as himself,
nor the pious, humble, and austere Cuthbert,
whose saintliness shone in Wilfrid's own country
and diocese, and nourished for so many ages the
popular devotion of northern England."

Of Colman we know little. He retired defeated,
and, it must have been, sad at heart, " with his
despised sect," from the land they and theirs had
spent themselves for and won to Christianity.
He simply went away, with sadness, but it seems
no bitterness, in his heart. All the Celtic brothers
went with him, and thirty of their English dis-
ciples. But he did not cease his fatherly care for
those who remained behind. He used his influ-
ence with King Oswy to have Eata — one of the
twelve English boys Aidan had gathered around
him and taken about with him and instructed —
appointed Abbot of Lindisfarne. And while he
took the bones of Aidan with him into Scotland,

220 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

he yet left half of these precious relics on the
island St. Aidan's presence and prayers had made
" Holy Island " for ever, to be buried in the sacristy
of the Abbey church.

He himself went first to the other sacred
island, Iona, the fountain of all the Missions, and
after staying there a year or two, returned to what
is supposed to have been his own country, and
founded a community on the Isle of Inis-bo-
Finn, off County Mayo, not very far from the
" Wood of Fochlut," to which " the Voice of the
Irish," " the Cry of the children," had called St.
Patrick two hundred years before.

His life, even there, does not seem to have
been altogether tranquil. The Irish, Celtic, and
English elements in his community do not seem
to have quite coalesced ; and he had at last to
separate them, planting the English monks in a
new monastery in Mayo, whilst he himself
remained with his countrymen on the little island,
which perhaps was dear to him as reminding him
of his own Lindisfarne and Iona ; and there he
died on August 8, a.d. 676, twelve years after he
had retired defeated and despised from the great
Synod at the Abbess Hilda's, Whitby.

There is something wonderfully pathetic and

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 221

typical in this silent retreat of the imaginative,
tender Celtic race before the " loud, strong, deter-
mined Englishman"; of the spiritual, self-denying,
fervent Saints who had silently won the hearts of
England for Christ, before the great, successful,
and all-powerful statesman who entered on their
labours. They left very few visible traces in
buildings, architectural or political.

Their churches were chiefly of wood, roofed
with reed, and their cells sometimes of wattle, or
rough unhewn stones, like cattle-sheds, soon
ruined by wind and weather. " There were very
few houses besides the church found at their
departure from Lindisfarne ; indeed no more
than were barely sufficient for their daily resi-
dence." "They were poor, and chose to remain
poor. For if they received any money from the
rich, they immediately gave it to the poor." Poor
in luxury, yet rich in artistic beauty. The only
relic left of this Holy Island of the Celts is a
book, written with the clear, fine Irish penmanship,
illuminated with the rich subdued colouring and
exquisite interlacing tracery of the Irish manu-
scripts, bound with lavish ornament and engraven
silver set with large and brilliant gems : the book
called the Gospels of Lindisfarne, Most charac-

222 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

teristic and pathetic monument of the Celtic
Mission. The Holy Islands of Iona and Lindis-
farne were fountains, not constructions.

The monument of Lindisfarne is the Book of
the Gospels, not a cathedral ; the Gospels written
and illuminated so as to be a fine work of art ;
the Gospels written and illuminated in the hearts
of Christian men and women, from the Hebrides
to Dorsetshire. The Holy Islands of Iona and
Lindisfarne were fountains, and the living waters
are known by the green places they make on
earth, the fields they make fertile, the forests
which spring in their track.

Colman and his brethren had no real reason
for sadness. Probably they lived too much on
the Gospels they transcribed for so many hearts,
to be long troubled or afraid. They had
unsealed a fountain of life for the world. And
the races who seemed to supersede them, but
really only succeeded them, and carried on
their work, were the organizing races of the world,
England and Rome, the builders of the aqueducts
whose waters flow from other sources on the
silent hills.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 223
THE CELTIC MISSIONS THROUGHOUT ENGLAND.

Montalembert resumes the work of the Celtic
Missionaries thus — "In resuming the history of
the efforts made during the sixty years from the
disembarkation of Augustin till the death of Penda
(a.d. 597 — 665), to introduce Christianity into
England, the results may be summed up thus :
Of the eight kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon con-
federation, Kent alone was exclusively conquered
and kept by the Roman monks, whose first
attempts with the East Saxons and Northum-
brians ended in a check. In Wessex and in
East Anglia, the Saxons of the West and the
Angles of the East were converted by the joint
action of the continental missionary and the
Celtic monks. As to the two Northumbrian
kingdoms, Essex and Mercia, in themselves alone
including two-thirds of the territory occupied
by the German conquerors, these four countries
owed their conversion exclusively to the Celtic
monks, who had not only rivalled in zeal the
Roman monks, but, the first obstacles once
surmounted, had shown much more perseverance,
and obtained much greater success.

" All the kingdoms of the Heptarchy have thus

224 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

passed under our notice except that of Sussex or
the Saxons of the South. This was the smallest
of all, but one of the earliest founded, and the
first German invaders of this southern coast of
Great Britain were remarkable above all for their
ferocity as well as for their invincible vigour.
Although nearest to Kent, the companions of
Augustin had left no trace of their passage, if
indeed they ever tried to penetrate there. The
Celtic monks, more enterprising or more persever-
ing, had succeeded in throwing out and estab-
lishing an outpost even there. This was the
little monastery of Bosham, protected on one
side by the sea, on the other by forests, where
vegetated six monks from the province nearest
Northumbria, East Anglia, under the leadership
of an Irishman, a compatriot and disciple of
Fursey, whose strange visions were spoken of
everywhere. They lived in humility and poverty,
but none of the Saxons of that country would
listen to them. This is the only example of such
a check. And nevertheless, the men of Sussex,
although the last of the Saxons to accept the
gospel, also owed this blessing to a monk formed
in the school of the Celtic Missionaries." l
1 Moines de V Occident, Tome iv.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 225

This is Montalembert's summing up of the
comparative results of the early missions to
England from Rome and from Iona. And to this
must be added the Celtic Missions to Cornwall,
not from Iona, but direct from the fountain-head
of the Iona life, from Ireland itself. In Cornwall
to this day the Patron Saint of parish after parish
has a Celtic, usually an Irish, name, and is con-
nected with some tradition of a holy man or woman
who came across the Irish Sea in a coracle, or if
necessary on a mill-stone, or on the sea without
further conveyance, to live and die, to bring
Christianity to the heathen people on those wild
coasts, St. Piran, St. Morwenna, St. Crantock.
Their names are the names of the parishes they
made Christian to this day.

Again, one or two pictures will bring the
Celtic Missionaries, or Missionaries formed in
the Celtic school, before us better than many
generalities, and they may best be given in the
words of Bede.

226

ST. CHAD.

" Chad, being thus consecrated Bishop of
Lichfield (by Archbishop Theodore, the Greek
from Tarsus, who established schools for Greek
in England), began immediately to devote himself
to ecclesiastical truth, and to chastity ; to apply
himself to humility, continence, and study ; to
travel about, not on horseback, but after the
manner of the Apostles, on foot, to preach the
Gospel in towns, the open country, cottages,
villages, and castles ; for he was one of the
disciples of Aidan, and endeavoured to instruct
his people by the same actions and behaviour,
according to his and his brother Cedd's example.
# # # # #

" At that time the Mercians were governed by
King Wulfhere, who, on the death of Jaruman,
desired of Theodore to supply him and his
people with a bishop ; but Theodore would not
obtain a new one for them, but requested of
King Oswy that Chad might be their bishop.

EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 227

He then lived retired at his monastery, which is
at Lestingau, Wilfred filling the bishopric of
York, and of all the Northumbrians, and like-
wise of the Picts, as far as the dominions of
King Oswy extended. And, seeing it was the
custom of that most reverend prelate to go
about the work of the Gospel to several places
rather on foot than on horseback, Theodore
commanded him to ride whenever he had a
long journey to undertake ; and finding him
very unwilling to omit his former pious labour,
he himself with his hands lifted him on the
horse ; for he thought him a holy man, and
therefore obliged him to ride whenever he had
need to go. Chad, having received the bishopric
of the Mercians and Lindisfarne, took care to
administer the same with great rectitude of life,
according to the example of the ancients. King
Wulfhere also gave him land of fifty families, to
build a monastery, at the place called Ad Barve,
or 'At the Wood,' in the province of Lindsey,
wherein marks of the regular life instituted by
him continue to this day.

" He had his episcopal see in the place called
Lichfield, in which he also died, and was buried,
and where the see of the succeeding bishops of

228 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

that province still continues. He had built
himself a habitation not far from the church,
wherein he was wont to pray and read with seven
or eight of the brethren, as often as he had any
spare time from the labour and ministry of the
Word. When he had most gloriously governed
the Church in that province for two years and
a half, the Divine Providence so ordaining, there
came round a season like that of which Eccle-
siastes says, ' That there is a time to cast stones,
and a time to gather them ' ; for there happened
a mortality sent from heaven, which by means of
the death of the flesh, translated the stones of
the Church from their earthly places to the
heavenly building. And when after many of the
Church of that most reverend prelate had been
taken out of the flesh, his hour also drew near,
wherein he was to pass out of this world to our
Lord, it happened one day, that he was in the
aforesaid dwelling with only one brother, called
Owini, his other companions being upon some
reasonable occasion returned to the church.
Now Owini was a monk of great merit, having
forsaken the world with the pure intention of
obtaining the heavenly reward ; worthy in all
respects to have the secrets of the Lord revealed

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 229

to him, and worthy to have credit given him by
his hearers to what he said, for he came with
Queen Etheldrid from the province of the East
Angles, and was her prime minister, and governor
of her family. As the fervour of his faith
increased, resolving to renounce the world, he
did not go about it slothfully, but so fully
forsook the things of this world, that quitting all
he had, clad in a plain garment, and carrying an
axe and hatchet in his hand, he came to the
monastery of that most reverend prelate, called
Lestingau ; denoting that he did not go to the
monastery to live idle, as some do, but labour,
which he also confirmed by practice, for as he
was less capable of meditating on the Holy
Scriptures, he the more earnestly applied himself
to the labour of his hand. In short, he was
received by the bishop into the house aforesaid,
and there entertained with the brethren, and
whilst they were engaged within in reading, he
was without doing such things as were necessary.
" One day when he was thus employed abroad,
and his companions were gone to the church, as
I began to state, the bishop was alone, reading
or praying in the oratory of that place, when on
a sudden, as he afterwards said, he heard the

230 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

voices of persons singing most sweetly and
rejoicing, and appearing to descend from heaven,
which voice he said he first heard coming from
the south-east, and that afterwards it drew near
him, till it came to the roof of the oratory where
the bishop was, and entering therein, filled the
same and all about it. He listened attentively to
what he heard, and after about half an hour,
perceived the same song of joy to ascend from
the roof of the said oratory, and to return to
heaven the same way it came, with inexpressible
sweetness. When he had stood for some time
astonished, and seriously revolving in his mind
what it might be, the bishop opened the window
of the oratory, and making a noise with his
hand, as he was often wont to do, ordered him
to come in to him. He accordingly went hastily
in, and the bishop said to him, f Make haste to
the church and cause the seven brothers to
come hither, and do you come with them/
When they were come, he first admonished
them to preserve the virtue of peace among
themselves and towards all others ; and inde-
fatigably to practise the rules of regular discipline
which they had either been taught by him, or
seen him observe, or had noticed in the words or

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 231

actions of the former fathers. Then he added,
that the day of his death was at hand ; for, said
he, 6 that amiable guest, who was wont to visit
our brethren, has vouchsafed also to come to
me this day, and to call me out of this world.
Return, therefore, to the church, and speak to
the brethren, that they in their prayers recom-
mend my passage to our Lord ; and they be
careful to provide for their own, the hour
whereof is uncertain, by watching, prayer, and
good works.'

"When he had spoken thus much and more,
and they, having received his blessing, had gone
away in sorrow, he who had heard the heavenly
song returned alone, and prostrating himself on
the ground, said, ' I beseech you, father, may I
be permitted to ask you a question ? ' ' Ask
what you will,' answered the bishop. Then he
added, ' I entreat you to tell me what song of joy
was that which I heard coming upon this oratory,
and after some time returning to heaven ? ' The
bishop answered, ' If you heard the singing, and
know of the coming of the heavenly company, I
command you, in the name of our Lord, that
you do not tell the same to any before my death.
They were angelic spirits who came to call me

232 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

to my heavenly reward, which I have always
longed after ; and they promised they would
return seven days hence, and take me away with
them.' Which was accordingly fulfilled, as had
been said to him ; for being presently seized with
a languishing distemper, and the same daily
increasing, on the seventh day, as had been
promised to him, when he had prepared for death
by receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord,
his soul being delivered from the prison of the
body, the angels, as may justly be believed,
attending him, he departed to the joys of
heaven.

" It is no wonder that he joyfully beheld the
day of his death, or rather, the day of our Lord,
which he had always carefully expected till it
came ; for notwithstanding his many merits of
continence, humility, teaching, prayer, voluntary
poverty, and other virtues, he was so full of the
fear of God, so mindful of his last end in all his
actions, that, as I was informed by one of the
brothers who instructed me in Divinity, and who
had been bred in his monastery and under his
direction, whose name was Grumhere, if it hap-
pened that there blew a strong gust of wind
when he was reading, or doing any other thing,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 233

he immediately called upon God for mercy, and
begged that it might be extended to all man-
kind. If the wind grew stronger, he closed his
book, and prostrating himself on the ground,
prayed still more earnestly. But if it proved a
violent storm of wind or rain, or else that the
earth and air were filled with thunder and light-
ning, he would repair to the church and devote
himself to prayers and repeating of psalms till the
weather became calm. Being asked by his fol-
lowers why he did so, he answered, ' Have you
not read — " The Lord also thundered in the
heavens, and the Highest gave forth His voice.
Yea, He sent out His arrows and scattered them ;
and He shot out lightnings and discomfited
them." For the Lord moves the air, raises the
winds, darts lightning and thunders from heaven,
to excite the inhabitants of the earth to fear
Him, and to put them in mind of the future
judgment ; to dispel their pride and vanquish
their boldness by bringing into their thoughts
that dreadful time, when the heavens and the
earth being in a flame, He will come in the
clouds, with great power and majesty, to judge
the quick and the dead. Wherefore,' said he,
'it behoves us to answer His heavenly admon-

234 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

ition with due fear and love ; that, as often as
He lifts His hand through the trembling sky,
as it were to strike, but does not yet let it fall,
we may immediately implore His mercy ; and
searching the recesses of our hearts, and cleans-
ing the filth of our vices, we may carefully
behave ourselves so as never to be struck."

In East Anglia there was the imaginative
Fursey, " of noble Scottish (z. e. Irish or Celtic)
blood, but much more noble in mind than in
birth ; learned in sacred books, and carefully
practising how all that he learned was to be
done ; who had those wonderful dreams or visions
of the unseen world, which were among the
material accumulating through the Middle Ages,
to be fused by the genius of Dante into the
great Poem of mediaeval Christianity, the Divina
Corn-media.

" When he had been lifted up on high," Bede
writes, "he was ordered by the angels that con-
ducted him, to look back upon the world.
Upon which, casting his eyes downward, he saw
as it were a dark and obscure valley underneath
him. He also saw four fires in the air, not far
distant from each other. Then, asking the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 235

angels what fires these were, he was told they
were the fires which would kindle and consume
the world.

"One of them was of falsehood : when we do
not fulfil that which we promised in baptism ;
to renounce the devil and all his works. The
next of covetousness : when we prefer the riches
of the world to the love of heavenly things. The
third of discord: when we make no difficulty to
offend the minds of our neighbours even in
needless things. The fourth of injustice: when
we look on it as no crime to rob and defraud
the weak. These fires, increasing by degrees,
extended so as to meet each other, and being
joined, became an immense flame.

" When this flame drew near, fearing for him-
self, he said to the angel, ' Lord, behold the fire
draws near me.' The angel answered, ' That
which you did not kindle shall not burn you; for
though this appears to be a terrible and great
fire, yet it tries every man according to the merit
of his works ; for every man's concupiscence
shall burn in the fire; for as every one burns in
the body through unlawful pleasure, so, when
discharged from the body, he shall burn in the
punishment which he has deserved/"

236 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.

Seldom, surely, has there been a loftier and
purer conception of what sin is, or of how sin
itself is the fire which burns in punishment the
soul that cleaves to it.

237

ST. CUTHBERT.

With one more of Bede's pictures of the
Saints of the Celtic type, we may close these
memorials of Iona.

"The same year that King Egfrid departed
this life, he (as has been said) promoted to the
bishopric of the Church of Lindisfarne, the holy
and venerable Cuthbert, who had for many years
led a solitary life, in great continence of body
and mind, in a very small island called Fame,
distant about nine miles from that same church,
in the ocean. From his very childhood he had
always been inflamed with the desire of a religious
life, but he took upon him the habit and name
of a monk when he was a young man. He first
entered into the monastery of Melrose, which is
on the bank of the river Tweed, and was there
governed by the Abbot Eata, a meek and simple
man, who was afterwards made bishop of the
Church of Hagulstad, or Lindisfarne, as has been
said above, over which monastery at that time

238 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

was placed Boisit, a priest of great virtue and
of a prophetic spirit. Cuthbert humbly submit-
ting himself to this man's direction, from him
received both the knowledge of the Holy Scrip-
tures and the example of good works.

" After he had departed to our Lord, Cuthbert
was placed over that monastery, where he in-
structed many in regular life, both by the
authority of a master, and the example of his
own behaviour. Nor did he afford admonitions
and an example of a regular life to his monastery
alone, but endeavoured to convert the people
round about, far and near, from the life of foolkh
custom to the life of heavenly joys ; for many
profaned the faith they had received by wicked
actions ; and some also neglecting the sacraments
of faith which they had received, had recourse
to the false remedies of idolatry.

" In order to correct the error of both sorts,
he often went out of the monastery (of Melrose),
sometimes on horseback, but oftener on foot, and
repaired to the neighbouring towns, where he
preached the way of truth to such as were gone
astray. It was then the custom of the English
people that when a clerk, or priest, came into the
town, they all, at his command, flocked together

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 239

to hear the Word ; willingly heard what was said,
and more willingly practised those things that
they could hear or understand. But Cuthbert
was so skilful an orator, so fond was he of
enforcing his subject, and such a brightness
appeared in his angelic face, that no man pre-
sumed to conceal from him the most hidden
secrets of his heart, but all openly confessed what
they had done ; because they thought the same
guilt could not be concealed from him, and
wiped off the guilt of what they had so confessed
with worthy fruits of penance, as he commanded.
" He was wont chiefly to resort to those places,
and preach in such villages, as being seated up
high among uncouth, craggy mountains, were
frightful to others to behold, and whose poverty
and barbarity rendered them inaccessible to other
teachers ; which nevertheless he, having entirely
devoted himself to that pious labour, did so
industriously apply himself to polish with his
doctrine, that when he departed out of his
monastery, he would often stay a week, some-
times two or three, and sometimes a whole month,
before he returned home, continuing among
the mountains to allure that rustic people by his
preaching and example to heavenly employments.

240 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

"This venerable servant of our Lord, having
thus spent many years in the monastery of
Melrose (f old Melrose '), and there become
conspicuous by many miracles, his most reverend
Abbot, Eata, removed him to the isle of Lindis-
farne, that he might there also, by the authority
of a superior and his own example, instruct the
brethren in the observance of regular discipline."

After this, Cuthbert, possessed with that intense
sense of the need of the solitude with God which
seems to have steeped the hearts of these Saints
in such tender love for all mankind, proceeded
to the adoption of a hermit's life of solitude in
a cell on a mountain, with a mound round it, so
that he could only see the sky, " the heavens to
which he aspired." "When," says Bede, "he had
served God in solitude many years, Cuthbert was
by the unanimous decree of all chosen bishop of
Lindisfarne. They could not, however, persuade
him to leave his monastery ; they all knelt (the
King . himself, with the most holy Bishop Tram-
wine, and other great men), and conjured him by
our Lord, and with tears and entreaties, till they
drew him, also in tears, from his retreat and
forced him to the synod. Being arrived there,
after much opposition he was overcome by the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 241

unanimous resolution of all present, and submitted
to take on himself the episcopal dignity.

"Following the example of the Apostles, he
became an ornament to the episcopal dignity by
his virtuous actions ; for he both protected the
people committed to his charge by constant
prayer, and excited them by most wholesome
admonitions to heavenly practices ; and, which
is the greatest help in teachers, he first showed
in his behaviour what he taught was to be per-
formed by others; for he was much inflamed
with the fire of Divine charity, modest in the
virtue of patience, most diligently intent on
devout prayers, and affable to all that came to
him for comfort.

ft He thought it equivalent to praying to afford
the infirm brethren the help of his exhortations,
well knowing that He who said, ' Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God,' said likewise, 'Thou
shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' He was
also remarkable for penitential abstinence, and
always intent on heavenly things through the
grace of humility. Lastly, when he offered up to
God the Sacrifice of the Saving Victim, he com-
mended his prayer to God, not with a loud voice,

but with tears drawn from the bottom of his heart.

Q

242 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

" Having spent two years in his bishopric, he
returned to his island and monastery, being
advised by a Divine oracle that the day of his
death, or rather of his life, was drawing near; as
he at that time, with his usual simplicity, signified
to some persons, though in terms which were
somewhat obscure, but which were nevertheless
afterwards plainly understood ; while to others
he declared the same openly."

Like St. Patrick with the roe and the fawn,
and St. Columba with the crane (or heron), he
loved the dumb animals. His beloved sea-fowl,
called St. Cuthbert's ducks after him, which
lived only in his islands, Lindisfarne and Fame,
were found embroidered on the episcopal robes
which were his shroud. The others also are said
to have loved him and gathered round him ; and
"there is a pleasant story told, how on one occa-
sion, being hungry and having no food at hand, he
descried an eagle, and bade his companion follow
it. The attendant returning with a large fish which
the eagle had caught in a river, received a rebuke
from the Saint, who bade him cut the fish in two,
and take half back, that God's kindly messenger,
the eagle, might not be without a dinner." *

1 Bishop Lightfoot, Leaders of the Northern Church.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 243

There is also a beautiful story of the friendship
between St. Cuthbert and a hermit who lived on
another island, a little wooded islet, in the middle
of the lake of Derwentwater, the two friends
dying at the same hour, being u taken as a single
soul " to God.

" There was a certain priest, venerable for the
probity of his life and manners, called Herebert,
who had long been united with the man of God,
Cuthbert, in the bonds of spiritual friendship.
This man, leading a solitary life in the island of
the great lake from which the river Derwent
flows, was wont to visit him every year, and to
receive from him spiritual counsel.

" Hearing that Bishop Cuthbert was come to
the city of Lugubalia (Old Penryth, in Cumber-
land), he repaired thither to him, according to
custom, being desirous to be more and more
inflamed in heavenly desires through his whole-
some admonitions.

"Whilst they alternately entertained one another
with the delights of the celestial life, the bishop,
among other things, said, ' Brother Herebert,
remember at this time to ask me all the questions
you wish to have resolved, and say all you design ;
for we shall see each other no more in this

244 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

world. For I am sure that the time of my
dissolution is at hand, and I shall speedily put off
this tabernacle of the flesh/

" Hearing these words, Herebert fell down at
his feet, and shedding tears, said with a sigh, ' I
beseech you by our Lord, not to forsake me ;
but that you remember your most faithful com-
panion, and entreat the Supreme Goodness that,
as we served Him together on earth, we may
depart together to see His bliss in heaven. For
you know that I have always endeavoured to live
according to your directions, and whatsoever
faults I have committed, whether through igno-
rance or frailty, I have instantly submitted to
correction according to your will.'

"The bishop applied himself to prayer, and
having presently had intimation in the spirit that
he had obtained what he had asked of the Lord,
he said, ' Rise, brother, and do not weep, but
rejoice, because the Heavenly Goodness has
granted what we desired.'

" The event proved the truth of this promise
and prophecy, for after their parting at that time,
they no more saw each other in the flesh, but
their souls quitting their bodies on the very same
day, that is the 20th of March, they were imme-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 245

diately again united in spirit, and translated to
the heavenly kingdom by the ministry of angels.
But Herebert was first prepared by a tedious
sickness through the dispensation of the Divine
Goodness, as may be believed, to the end that if
he was anything inferior in merit to the blessed
Cuthbert, the same might be made up by the
chastening pain of a long sickness, that being
thus made equal in grace to his intercessor, as
he departed out of the body at the very same
time with him, so he might be received into the
same seat of eternal bliss."

And so the two friends died, on their two
islands ; one celebrated throughout the English
world for centuries ; the other only known through
this one sacred link of love and prayer, but both,
it was believed, through the same inward grace of
the Heavenly Goodness received into the same
joy in the heavenly kingdom, for ever.

It has doubtless been a gain that in the
Christianizing of England, as in so many things,
there has been more than one current of influ-
ence. Far be it from any of us to minimize or
detract from the debt of gratitude we owe to
Gregory the Great. We can none of us forget

246 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

the story which pleased our childhood of his
affectionate puns with the fair English boys in
the Roman slave-market. The " Who are those
children ? " " They are Angles." " Not Angles,
but Angels. Whence do they come ? " " From
the province of Deira." " De ird shall they be
delivered. Wliat is your name ? " " Ella." " The
Alleluias shall soon resound from your land."

Nor would we be ungrateful to the forty
monks who came, though with some reluctance
and terror, to save us, having heard what dreadful
savages we were. It is no small honour for the
English Church to be linked at the beginning
with the great and good man who with all his
tolerance would not tolerate persecution and
slavery; who insisted on equal justice being done
to the Jews ; who wrote to St. Augustine not to
glory much in miracles, because "The proof of
holiness is not working miracles, but loving all
as we love ourselves," Reviser of the Liturgy,
Reformer of Church music, Protector of Italy
from the Lombards, this England of ours which
has made it an act of emancipation for any slave
to tread her soil, is bound to him with an im-
perishable bond by the preamble of the Act
with which he emancipated his two slaves.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 247

" Since the Redeemer and Creator of the
world/' he declares, "has willed to incarnate
Himself in humanity, to break by the gift of
freedom the chain of our bondage, it is to act
well and fairly to restore their original freedom
to men whom nature made free, but whom the
law of nations has bound under the yoke of
slavery."

Certainly England would not repudiate her
debt to St. Gregory of Rome. But still less
would she ungenerously ignore what she owes to
Ireland — to the generous Celtic race, the fervent
and humble Saints from Iona and Ireland, who
with all the enthusiasm of their ardent hearts
and vivid imagination, spent themselves with
unwearied patience and boundless self-denial and
unquenchable love in pouring forth the blessings
of Christianity through every nook and corner
of our land.

MISSIONS

OF

IRELAND AND ENGLAND

IN EUROPE.

2?1

ST. COLUMBAN,

ABBOT OF LUXEUIL AND BOBBIO.
I.

We come to a new phase in the life of the
Irish Church.

The busy, crowded monasteries swarmed like
bees in a bee-hive, and were continually forming
new colonies.

The more we look into the history of the cen-
turies after St. Patrick — the fifth, sixth, seventh,
and eighth centuries — the more we are struck
with the wonderful force of the Irish monasteries,
centripetal and centrifugal; gathering from all
Europe men who sought inspiration for a holy
life, and at the same time the best learning of the
day — sacred and secular ; and then sending them
forth with the Missionary inspiration. Again and
again, if any one especially good or learned is
mentioned, e. g. Agilbert l (Bishop of the ancient
1 St. Bede in many places.

252 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Dorchester near Oxford) : Egbert, who, in the
seventh century, longed to sail round England to
preach the Word of God to some of those nations
who had not heard of it, " the Frisons, the Danes,
the Huns, the ancient Saxons": Willibrord, who
accomplished at the close of the century what
Egbert had wished to do, and became the Apostle
of the Frisians : it is to Ireland they go " to study
and to be well instructed " ; it is to Ireland they
retire " either for the sake of Divine studies or to
lead a pure life " ; it is in Ireland they abide
" even as strangers, there to obtain hereafter a
residence in heaven " ; and having been trained
in the monastic discipline, and filled their minds
with the learning, Latin and Greek, sacred and
ancient classical, stored up in the libraries, and
taught by the great teachers there, and having
enkindled their hearts into a glow of love to God
and man at the hearts of the great Saints there,
the Divine impulse seems to have sent them
forth to spread Christianity and civilization
through Europe.

In order to realize the wonderful exuberance of
spiritual and intellectual life in Ireland at that
age, we must take a survey of the numbers, the
multitudes, of those who went thither to learn,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 253

from England, and France, and all Europe, and
came forth thence to teach in Scotland and
England, as we have seen ; and also in France,
Holland, Switzerland, and Italy. But to form
any clear picture of what the men were, what
they brought to the lands which were the scenes
of their Missions, it is best to follow as far as
we can the life of one or two of the greatest
Missionaries.

The most characteristic life to take seems to
be that of Columban, with all its storms and
conflicts, and its outpourings of blessings on land
after land. In him we see combined many of
the most characteristic features of the Celtic type
of nature and of saintliness, an Irishman of the
Irish like St. Columba. He had an imaginative
and devotional delight in solitude : he had not,
apparently, any rooted dislike to combat — at least,
he was generally in some kind of warfare, usually
a true crusade against vice and oppression ; but
he fought as if he enjoyed it ; he had a keen,
bright intellect, well stored with all the learning
of his age, so that the Abbey of Luxeuil which
he founded became not only " a nursery of
bishops and abbots, preachers and reformers,"
but " the most famous and the most frequented

254 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

school in Christendom " l ; and his heart was
ardently affectionate and loyal, winning and
keeping the devoted affection of his monks and
pupils.

The first conflict of Columban seems to have
been with his own passionate nature. Quick-
witted and sympathetic, with noble personal
appearance and great personal charm, his attrac-
tions endangered the hearts of others in his native
Leinster, and apparently also his own. The one
type of the higher life, then, seemed to be the
monastic ; to renounce home, with its cares, joys,
and duties, for the life apart from all, and de-
voted to all in God. He consulted a recluse, a
nun, or maiden-hermit, how best to escape these
perils. She counselled him to abandon his native
place, and to save himself for the true life, by
flight. He listened to her as a prophetess,
counting the entreaties of his own mother as
among the temptations from the higher path
to be resisted, and left his home for ever. The
sacrifices of the mothers left, like Columban's,
"entreating on the threshold," will, it is to be
hoped, also count. No doubt, in time, being a
true mother, and loving best what was best for
1 Montalembert, Moines de V Occide7it.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 255

him, she became content, and followed his career
with joy and pride.

In all ages and in all lives worth living, the
mothers of a country who sends her soldiers and
sailors, her rulers and reformers, and her Chris-
tian missionaries to all regions of the earth, must
often have to weep their tears of parting on the
threshold. No earthly home ruled by high human
laws (to say nothing of being inspired by the
Christian law of sacrifice) can retain all its
daughters or its sons. Only, sometimes one
longs to hear a little more of those who stay in
the empty home and sacrifice its joys, as well
as of those who sacrifice the home, and go. St.
Columban's mother stayed in the desolate home.
St. Columban went to Bangor among the full
tide of young and vigorous life, the active com-
munity of three thousand, eager to learn, or able
to teach, where travellers were always returning
with news and fresh life from many lands, and
Missionaries always going to every land.

St. Columban remained at Bangor long enough
to acquaint himself with the learning needed to
found his great Abbey.

The good Abbot, like his mother, would have
liked to retain him. But it could have been no

256 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

new thing to the leader and inspirer of thousands
of eager students and monks — Irish, and of the
choicest and most ardent of other races — to
find the fervour which had attracted them to
Bangor, and there enkindled their hearts and
minds, impelling them forth from Bangor, to
carry its light and heat elsewhere. For Colum-
ban, the hardest threshold to cross had been left
behind in Leinster.

For ever in his heart were sounding the words
of the old Divine call, " Go forth from thy
country, and thy father s house, to the land that
I shall shew thee.'"

His scholar and biographer, Jonas, a monk
and disciple of his, in his Monastery of Bobbio,
expresses this thus : — " He began to long for a
pilgrim life, mindful of the command of the
Lord, ' Depart from thy country, and thy
kindred, and thy father's house, and go to the
land that I shall shew thee ! ' God bestowed on
Father Columban that fervour of heart, that long-
ing enkindled by the fire of the Lord, of which He
saith, ' I am come to enkindle a fire upon earth/
Columban himself says of this holy fire of love:
( O that God — since petty as I am, I am His
servant — O that God would so arouse me out of

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 257

the sleep of sloth, that He would deign so to
enkindle in me the fire of Divine love, that this
Divine flame may constantly burn in me ! O that
I had the fuel with which perpetually to feed that
fire, that it might never more be extinguished,
but might constantly increase in me ! O Lord,
give me, I beseech Thee, in the name of Jesus
Christ Thy Son, my God, that love which can
never cease ; that my lamp may be kindled, and
may not be extinguished ; that it may burn in
me, and shine to others! And Thou, Christ, our
dearest Saviour, do Thou Thyself kindle our
lamps, that they may shine evermore in Thy
temple, that they may receive inextinguishable
light from Thee, the inextinguishable light, that
our darkness may be enlightened, whilst the
darkness of the world flies from us. My Jesus,
I beseech Thee, give Thy light to my lamp,
that in its light may be manifested to me, that
Holy of Holies, in which Thou, the eternal Priest,
dost dwell, that I may continually contemplate
Thee only, long for Thee, gaze on Thee, and
yearn for Thee in love. Let it be Thy concern,
O Saviour full of love, to shew Thyself to us who
knock, that we may perceive Thee, love Thee
alone, only think of Thee day and night, that

258 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Thy love may possess our whole souls, and this
so great love may never more be extinguished
by the many waters of this earth, as it is written,
that many waters cannot quench love.' "

And so Columban and his twelve companions
left Bangor for Gaul to repay the gift the Gallo-
Roman Patrick had brought two hundred years
before to Ireland. But neither Columban nor
the Abbot Comgall knew what forces were gather-
ing against them and the Christian Church far
away in the East beyond all the lands and seas
they knew.

In a little pagan city beyond Syria, beyond the
deserts of Arabia, a life had begun, a person-
ality was being developed, which was to crush
the ancient Christianity of the East, and to
imperil the Christianity of the West for centuries
to come ; whilst, in the far West — on the wild
coasts of Ireland — arms and armies had been
preparing which were to save Europe ; and now
they were called forth to the unknown battle with
a foe from a quarter where no one had ever
dreamt of any danger.

In 570, while Columban was at Bangor, in train-
ing for the warfare with the heathen and lapsed
Christians of Europe, Mohammed was born.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 259

In 585, when he went forth from Bangor,
Mohammed was growing up, an eccentric orphan
boy, faithfully cared for by his uncle, perplexing
his relations by his strange ways and epileptic
fits and trances.

In 615, when Columban, after introducing
Christianity among the heathen of Switzerland,
and reviving it among the chilled or fallen Chris-
tians in Gaul and Italy, died Abbot of Bobbio on
the Apennines, Mohammed had for five years
believed himself the supreme Prophet of God,
and was slowly gathering a few converts around
him.

In 636, twenty-one years after the death of
Columban, and twenty-four years after the death
of Mohammed, Damascus and Jerusalem had
fallen into the hands of the Mohammedan con-
querors, and through all Christian Europe rang
the fearful tidings that the Holy Sepulchre was
in the hands of the infidels — altogether new
and unforeseen infidels ; that the most ancient
churches of the world were falling before them
like reeds before a whirlwind of the desert.

It was not till a century after, in 732, that at
the Battle of Tours, in the France Columban had
helped to restore and rekindle to the fervour of

260 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

the Christian faith, Charles M artel at last drove
back the devastating tide of Moslem fanaticism
and conquest. By a way he knew not, against
forces he could not see, Columban was being led
to marshal the forces of his King for a battle of
which he could not dream. Moreover the time
was short, the time for the peaceful shining of
Christianity in those Irish monasteries of Ireland
and of Iona.

Early in the ninth century the Danes began
their ravages on Iona and its " Family," and
burned the churches and massacred the Christian
communities on all the coasts of Ireland ; only
two hundred years after St. Columba's death, and
St. Columban's mission. It was well for the
world that those two hundred years had been so
nobly used.

II.

Columban and his twelve young monks and
pupils, in training for orders, paid a visit to
Britain on their way to France. They seem to
have spent some years in a missionary journey
through France, which from the successive
ravages of the various barbaric tribes, and the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 261

state of carelessness as to faith and morals into
which the Christian clergy and people seem to
have fallen, had well-nigh sunk anew into chaos,
and needed to be civilized and converted once
more. " He found indeed the Catholic faith still
standing (say les Petits Bollandistes), but Chris-
tian virtue and ecclesiastical discipline outraged
or unknown, thanks to the fury of wars and the
negligence of the bishops." Columban and his
twelve young Irish monks, carrying with them
everywhere the light of their life of faith and
self-denial, preached to the people, were followed
and listened to. But they do not seem to have
founded any settled community until they reached
Burgundy, near the Vosges mountains. There
they were warmly welcomed by Gontran, the
most worthy of the grandsons of Clovis. It was
a curious return of the wave, that the countrymen
of Patrick the Gallo-Roman Apostle of Ireland,
and the kinsman of Clotilda, the first Christian
Queen of Kent, who had helped the mission of
St. Augustine to her heathen husband, should
be receiving the life of Christianity afresh from
Christian Ireland.

Gontran entreated Columban and his Twelve
to remain among them and teach his people, and

>62 .EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

offered them any riches and gifts in his power
to tempt them. The lands of the religious
houses were often given to rich laymen, and they
might have had luxurious and easy lives, but
Columban did not want the gifts. He had not
left home and country to seek riches elsewhere,
he said, " but to follow Christ, and to bear His
cross." The King replied that there were plenty
of wildernesses in his country, where they might
find the Cross and gain heaven. He could easily
accommodate them with a desert. So at last
they consented to settle in a wild place on the
ruins of an old Roman castle at Annegray, among
the Vosges mountains.

There they lived four years. At first they
had many hardships to endure. They had to
clear the land and plough and sow before they
could have even bread to eat; and meantime they
had sometimes to live and work, sustained by
the bark of trees and herbs. Once this weighed
especially on them, because one of their number
was ill. They had been praying for three days
that their sick brother might be relieved, when
they saw a man, whose sacks were laden with
provisions, stop before the gates of the monas-
tery. He told them he had felt constrained by

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 263

a sudden impulse to assist according to his
means those who from love to Christ suffered
such need in the wilderness.1

For it was indeed a wilderness, like France itself,
the ruins of an ancient civilization, and overgrown
and become a waste again. There were tangles
of wild forest, and there were wild beasts, wolves
and bears, prowling among the Roman ruins.
The young Irish monks set to work at once, and
began felling the trees, and digging, and plough-
ing in the clearings. They were re-conquering
the land from Nature as really and with toil as
severe, and amongst perils as great as any en-
countered by settlers in the wild West of America.
The perils were greater in some ways — for the
wild men around them were no mere uncivilized
tribes of Indians with some rude civilization of
their own ; they were civilized men grown wild
again through war and misery. There was
especial hope however as well as especial danger
in this.

When the Christian community set up their

threefold work of worship and work and study,

when the church-bell was heard once more

resounding through the solitudes, its tones fell

1 Neander's Denkwiirdigkeilen.

264 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

doubtless on the ears of some who had heard
them before, perhaps in clays of Christian
childhood, and woke chords which had been
slumbering for years.

The early missionary work of Columban was
among people who had once had civilization
and Christianity. Nevertheless the solitude was
wild enough to satisfy any romantic desire for
"a desert," such as one of St. Columban's monks
had vainly sailed forth to find in the Western
Seas. From time to time Columban availed
himself with delight of this, left his Twelve, and
plunged deep into the absolute solitude of the
forest, "with his Bible in the case of leather and
metal used by the Irish monks, suspended from
his shoulder." "There in the wild forest none
of the wild creatures feared him, nor he them.
The animal stories of the Celtic legends gather
around him in those solitary retreats. It is said
the birds flew down for his caresses; that the
squirrels scrambled down from the pine-trees and
hid in the folds of his cowl ; that he drove one
bear from his cave and made it his cell ; that he
took from another a dead stag whose skin made
shoes for his monks. One day when he was
reflecting whether the ferocity of the beasts who

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 265

do not sin was not better than the rage of men
who lose their souls, he saw twelve wolves, who
came and surrounded him on the right and left.
He remained motionless, repeating the verse
Deus in adjutorium. The wolves, after smelling
his clothes, seeing him fearless, went on their
way. He also went on his way; and in a few
steps, he heard a great noise of human voices,
that he recognized to be those of German
brigands, of the nation of the Suevi, who were
then ravaging the country. He did not see
them, but he thanked God for thus saving him
from this double danger."

We are not left to conjecture what Col um ban's
thoughts were in these solitudes ; or what was the
nourishment of his spiritual life. He has left us
many books, his Rule, and Instructions to his
Monks — Letters and Poems.1 Some extracts
from these writings of his own will best show
what inspired him, and how he inspired others.
In his Instructions to his Monks he writes —

" We must attain to the city of God in the
right way, by mortification of the flesh, con-
trition of heart, bodily labour, and humiliation of
spirit, by our own efforts (doing in this only
1 Les Petits BoIIandistes, Tom. ifM\

266 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

what it is our duty to do, not as if we could
merit anything), and what is above all, by the
grace of Christ, by faith and hope and love."

In the Monastic Rules of Col um ban it is
written : — " Let the monk live in the convent
under the control of a father, and in fellowship
with many, that from the one he may learn
humility, from the others patience ; from the one
silent obedience, from the others gentleness ; let
him not do his own will, let him eat what is
commanded him, let him take as much as he is
given, let him accomplish his daily task. Let
him retire weary to his bed, let him sleep slightly,
and before he has slept out his sleep, let him
be compelled to rise. Let him fear the superior
of the convent as a master, and love him as a
father." l

And again : — " He tramples on the world who
overcomes himself; no one who spares himself
can hate the world. In our own souls alone do
we hate or love the world." And in another
Instruction : —

" We must willingly resign, for Christ's sake,
all that we love besides Christ. Firstly, if it is
necessary, our natural life must be yielded up
1 Neander's Denkwiirdigkeiten.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 267

to the martyr's death for Christ. Or, if the
opportunity of such blessedness fails, the cruci-
fixion of the will must not be lacking, so that
those who thus live, may no longer live unto
themselves, but unto Him who died for them.
Let us therefore live unto Him, who although
He died for us, is our life ; let us die to ourselves,
in order to live unto Christ. For we cannot live
unto Him, if we do not first die to ourselves,
that is, to our own will. Let us be Christ's and
not our own ; for we are clearly bought — dearly
bought indeed — for the Master gave Himself
for the servant, the King for the subject, God
for man. What shall we return for this, that the
Creator of the universe has died for us sinners,
for us His creatures ? Dost thou not think that
thou shouldest also die to sin? Surely thou
shouldest. Let us therefore die ; let us die for
Him who is the Life, since the Life has died for
us, that we may be able to say with Paul, ' I live,
yet not I, but Christ liveth in me, who hath
died for me ' — this is the voice of God's people.
No man can die to himself if God does not first
live in him. Live in Christ, that Christ may
live in thee. With violence must we now take
the kingdom of heaven; for we are not only

268 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

opposed by our adversaries, but yet more fiercely
by ourselves. It is a great misery when a man
injures himself and does not feel it. If thou
hast overcome thyself, thou hast overcome all."

And again : — " If the monks learn the lowliness
of Christ, the yoke will become easy to them,
and the burden light. Lowliness of heart is the
rest of a soul wearied out by conflict with its
corrupt inclinations, and by its inward sufferings;
this is its only refuge from such manifold evils,
and the more it withdraws to this contemplation
from restless distraction amongst vain and
external things, the more it rests, and is inwardly
refreshed, so that the bitter becomes sweet, and
what was formerly too hard and difficult to be
borne, becomes smooth and easy."

And again: — "Who can speak of the essence
of God, — how He is everywhere present and in-
visible, or how He fills heaven and earth and all
creatures, according to those words, ' Am I not
He whofilleth heaven and earth?' (Jer. xxii. 24).
The universe is full of the Spirit of the Lord :
' Heaven is My throne, and earth My footstool.'
Thus God is everywhere present in all His
infinity ; everywhere He is quite near us, accord-
ing to His own testimony concerning Himself.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 269

'Am I a God that is near, saith the Lord, and
not a God afar off?' We do not therefore seek
God as One who is far off from us, since we can
draw nigh to Him in our own souls ; for He
dwells in us as the soul in the body, if we are
not dead in the service of sin. If we are fit to
receive Him, then we are made truly living by
Him, as His living members. * In Him,' says
the Apostle, cwe live and move and have our
being/ Who can search out the Highest in this
His unutterable and incomprehensible essence ?
Who can fathom the depths of the Godhead ?
Who can boast that he comprehends the Infinite
God, who fills and embraces all things, who
penetrates all things, and is sublime above all ?
For no man hath seen how He exists. Let no
one then venture to search into the unsearchable
essence of God ; let us only believe simply, yet
firmly, that God is, and will be that which He
has been, because He is the unchangeable God.
God is apprehended by the pious faith of a pure
heart, but not by an impure heart and vain
discourse. If thou wilt dare to search out the
unutterable with thy prying subtleties, wisdom
will remain further from thee than she was
(Eccles. vii. 24) ; but if, on the other hand, thou

270 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

clingest to Him by faith, wisdom will stand at
thy door. Therefore should we beseech the
Omnipresent, Invisible God Himself, that the
fear which is linked with faith and love may abide
in us; for this fear of God, blended with love,
makes us wise on all occasions, and piety teaches
us to be silent about the unutterable ! "

Of the happiness of him who has vital Christi-
anity, he says : " Who indeed can be happier than
the man whose death is life, whose life is Christ,
whose reward is the Saviour, to whom the heavens
bow down, to whom paradise is open, for whom
hell is closed, whose father is God, whose servants
are the angels ? " In his eighth Instruction : — " It
behoves pilgrims to hasten to their home. They
have cares as long as they are on their pilgrimage,
but in their fatherland they have rest. Let us,
therefore, who are on our pilgrimage, hasten
towards our fatherland, for our whole life is as
a day's journey. The first thing for us is not to
set our affections on things below, but on things
above; to desire only, to meditate only on the
things which are above ; to seek our fatherland
there only where our Father is. Here on earth,
then, we have no fatherland, because our Father
is in heaven."

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 271

Of love as the soul of the Christian life he
says: — " What has the law of God prescribed more
carefully, more frequently than love? And yet
you seldom find any one who really loves. What
have we to say in excuse? Can we say, it is
something painful and hard ? Love is no labour ;
it is, on the contrary, a sweet, and wholesome,
and healing thing to the heart. Unless the soul
is diseased within, its health is love. He who
fulfilleth the law with the zeal of love hath eternal
life. As John says, ' We know that we have passed
from death unto life, because we love the brethren.
He who loveth not his brother, abideth in death.
He who hateth his brother is a murderer, and ye
know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding
in him.' We must therefore do nothing but love,
or we have nothing to expect but punishment.
May our gracious Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ, our God, the Creator of peace and love,
inspire us with this love, which is the fulfilling
of the law ! "

272 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

III.

"At the end of several years,1 the increasing
number of his disciples obliged him to move
elsewhere, and by the protection of one of the
chief Ministers of the King of the Franks,
Agnoald, married to a Burgundian lady of noble
family, he obtained from Gontran the possession
of another ancient castle, Luxeuil, where there
had been baths magnificently decorated by the
Romans, and where, still, in the neighbouring
forests could be seen the idols which the Gauls
had worshipped. It was on the ruins of two
civilizations that the great monastic metropolis
of Austrasia and of Burgundy was planted.

" Luxeuil was situated on the borders of these
two kingdoms, at the foot of the Vosges. All
that country on the slopes of mountains of the
Vosges and the Jura, afterwards Franche Comte,
consisted, for an extent of sixty leagues in length,
and ten to fifteen in breadth, of nothing but
parallel chains of inaccessible defiles, broken
by impenetrable forests, bristling with immense
pine-woods which descended from the highest

1 Les Petits Bollandistes.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 273

summits of the mountains, and overshadowed
the clear and rapid streams of the Doubs, the
Dessoubre, and the Loire. The invasions of
the barbarians, chiefly of Attila, had reduced
the Roman cities to ashes, and had destroyed
all the culture and all the population. Wild
vegetation and wild beasts had again taken
possession of this solitude, and it was reserved
to the disciples of Columban and Benedict to
transform them into fields and pasturage.

" Disciples soon crowded round the Irish colo-
nizer. Soon he numbered many hundreds in
the three monasteries that he had founded
(Annegray, Luxeuil, and Fontaines), which he
governed together. The Frank and Burgundian
nobles, conquered by the sight of these homes
of labour and prayer, brought him their sons,
lavished donations on him, and often came to
ask him to cut off their flowing hair, insignia
of free noble birth, and to admit them into the
ranks pf his army. Labour and prayer had
taken there, under the strong hand of Columban,
proportions unheard of before. The crowd of
poor serfs and rich seigneurs became so large,
that he was able to organize the perpetual
spiritual Office called Laus perennis, which

17 A EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

existed already at Agaune, on the other side
of Lake Leman.

"In this Office, day and night, the voices of
the monks, ' as unwearied as those of the angels,'
rose to celebrate the praises of God in a canticle
without end. All, rich and poor, were equally
kept to the work of clearing the ground, of
ploughing, reaping, or cutting up wood, which
Columban himself directed. With the impetu-
osity natural to him he spared no weakness.
He exacted that even the sick should go and
thrash the corn. One article of his Rule pre-
scribes to the monk to go to bed so tired that
he falls asleep at once, and rises again before
he has slept enough. It was at the cost of
this perpetual and excessive labour that half
France and Europe were restored to cultivation
and life."

Nor were these years engrossed only in the
warfare with Nature.

By his zeal for strict morality, and also by
his loyal adhesion to many peculiar rites and
customs of his own Celtic Church, which differed
from those of Rome and the rest of Christendom,
he made himself many enemies among the laity
and the clergy. And to this day, as well as in

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 275

his own, naturally opinions differ as to this part
of his conduct. Montalembert and the " new
Bollandists " consider that " while signing himself
* Columban the sinner/ he evidently considers
himself the doctor and teacher of those to whom
he speaks, and even carries his pretensions so
far as to attempt to bring round the Holy See
to his opinions." On the other hand, Neander,
while allowing that " he might have been more
yielding in trivial outward things, considers that
it was his purpose to oppose an usurping ecclesi-
astical authoritv, which did not recognize the
rights of Christian freedom."

It is of more interest, as to understanding him,
to read his own words, than any comments on
them. He had certainly no wish to impose the
Irish customs on the rest of the Church, but
only to be allowed to retain them in his own
monasteries.

When in 602 a Synod was held in France to
deliberate on this subject, he wrote thus to the
clergy assembled there: — "Differences of manners
and customs have indeed been very injurious
to the peace of the Church ; but if we only
hasten to extract the poison of pride, envy,
and pursuit of vain-glory, by the exercise of

276 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

true humility, according to the teaching and
example of our Lord, who says, 'Learn of
Me, for I am meek and lowly in heart,' as
disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall
mutually love one another with our whole heart ;
for the lowly cannot strive, since the truth will
soon be recognized by those who, with the
same purpose and the same desire to know the
truth, seek what is best, where only error is
vanquished, and no man glories in himself, but
in the Lord." He concludes the letter with these
words, " Since we should love one another with
love unfeigned, let us diligently consider the
commandments of our Lord Jesus Christ, and
if we understand them, strive to fulfil them, in
order that through His teaching, the whole
Church, in a glow of holy zeal, may set her
affections on things above. May His unmerited
grace grant us this, to fly the world, and love
Him alone; to seek Him with the Father and
the Holy Ghost. For the rest, oh fathers,
pray ye for us, as we, insignificant as we are,
pray for you ; and regard us not as strangers,
for we are members of one body, be we Gauls,
Britons, Irishmen, or of any nation whatsoever.
Thus may we all from all nations rejoice in

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 177

the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of
God, and hasten to become a perfect man, after
the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ; in which effort may we mutually help
one another, care for one another, pray for
one another, and triumph and rejoice together." ]
To the end of his life, whether he were on
the right side or the wrong on any particular
point in debate, the same longing for freedom
and love, for true unity through any external
division, possessed him. Long afterwards, when
he was an old man, and Abbot of Bobbio, there
had been a schism which had endured many
years in Italy. Eager to heal it, he wrote
to the Pope, Boniface IV. : — " Watch first
over the faith, then to encourage the works of
faith, and eradicate vice ; for your watchfulness
will be the salvation as your neglect will be the
destruction of many. We do not regard persons,
but truth. Since you, in consequence of the
dignity of your Church, have great honour,
you should use great diligence in order not
to lose your dignity by any error ; for power
will remain with you, as long as you remain
on the right side. He is a true bearer of the

1 Neander's Denkwiirdivkeiten.

278 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

keys of the kingdom of heaven, who by true
knowledge opens it to the worthy, and closes
it against the unworthy. If he does the contrary,
he can neither open nor shut. Since, therefore,
you perhaps with a degree of pride claim for
yourself a higher dignity and power with regard
to Divine things, you should know that your
power will be so much the less with the Lord,
the more you think of it in your own heart,
for unity of faith throughout the world has
also brought forth unity of spiritual power, so
that everywhere truth must be allowed a unity
of access to all men, whilst error must be equally
denied it. The confession of the truth obtained
his privileges for our common father Peter."
Then follows the beautiful exhortation, applicable
to so many divisions, which arise from giving
prominence to minor differences rather than to
unity in the essentials of the faith, and thus rend
the bond of love. "Therefore, beloved, return
quickly to concord, and do not recur to old
strifes, but rather be silent, and consign them
to eternal oblivion. If anything is doubtful,
leave it to the decision of God. But about
what is evident, what is open to the judgment
of men, judge ye without respect of persons.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 279

Receive ye one another, that there may be joy
in heaven over your peace and union. I know
not how a Christian can strive with Christians
about the faith. What the orthodox Christian
who praises the Lord in the right way says,
another will confirm with his Amen, since both
believe and love the same thing."

Montalembert says: — "He preaches besides,
union between the Secular and Regular clergy, and
his language then becomes more solemn and full
of emotion. ' I am not the author of this differ-
ence/ he says to the Synod ; 6 1 have come, a
poor stranger, into these lands for the sake of
Christ our Saviour, the God and Lord of us all ;
I only ask one grace of your holinesses, that I may
be allowed to continue to live in silence in the
heart of these forests, near the bones of the seven-
teen brothers that I have already seen die there.
These, with those who survive, will pray for you,
as I ought, as I have always done these twelve
years. Ah ! let me live with you in this Gaul
where we are, since we are to live with each other
in heaven, if we are worthy to enter there ! In
spite of our coldness of heart, we will follow to
our utmost the canons, the precepts of the Lord
and the Apostles. These are our weapons, our

28o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

glory, our shield. It is to' keep faithful to these
that we left our country, and came to dwell with
you. It rests with you, holy Fathers, to see
what you will do with a few poor veterans, a few
aged pilgrims, and if it is not better to cheer than
to trouble them. I dare not go to you, for fear
that I might get into contention with you ; but
I confess to you the secrets of my conscience,
and how I believe, above all, in the tradition
of my country, which is moreover that of St.
Jerome.' "

IV.

But the permanent controversy of St. Columban
was with vice and oppression, especially during
his later years at Luxeuil : with the weak men
and terrible women of the Merovingian royal
family.

The dowager Queen Brunehault (not the
especially wicked Brunehault — this lady, it is
said, had herself passed a blameless youth), in
order, it seems believed, to retain her own in-
fluence over her grandson, King Thierry, " moved
(say les Petits Bollandistes) by the thirst of
reigning" encouraged him in polygamy, to call
it by no worse name.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 281

Columban, with his Catholic and Irish practice
and veneration of purity, was, it appears, expected
to take the very mixed and questionable state of
the young King's family as a matter of course.
This he entirely declined to do. " What mean
those children?" he said, when Queen Brune-
hault presented them to him. " They are the
sons of the King; strengthen them by your
benediction," said the Queen. "They will never
reign," he replied, "they have an evil origin."

From that moment Queen Brunehault became
his deadly enemy. She prohibited any of his
monks from leaving their monasteries, and forbade
any one to receive them or give them any aid.

Columban seems to have given up the Queen,
but tried to bring back the young King. He
went to him in his royal villa of Epoisses. The
King had a sumptuous repast served him ; but
the Abbot refused to accept anything from the
hand of the oppressor. It was believed that the
dishes broke miraculously at his word, and the
King, alarmed, promised to reform. But he did
not reform, and Columban wrote him a letter
full of vehement reproaches, threatening excom-
munication.

The young King, instigated by his grandmother,

282 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

presented himself at Luxeuil, and insisted on
entering the refectory contrary to the Abbot's
rule, saying that Columban must suffer people
to enter, or renounce all royal gifts. Columban
replied, "If you violate our rules, we have
nothing to do with your gifts ; and if you come
here to destroy our monastery, know that your
kingdom and your race will be destroyed."

Again the King was frightened ; but he re-
covered and said, " Perhaps you hope that I will
obtain you the crown of martyrdom, but I am
not fool enough for that ; only if you refuse
all relations with secular men, you have but
to go whence you came, back to your own
country."

Columban refused to yield except to force.
Accordingly they took him from his monastery
to Besan^on. There he won respect from all.
He climbed to the citadel, and thence he saw the
river Doubs, which flowed through the beloved
solitudes of his own forests, and by the fields the
labours of his monks had cleared. He took
his resolution at once, and quietly walked back
to his Luxeuil.

There the soldiers of the King found him ;
they knelt to him, and entreated him not to

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 283

endanger their lives fey refusing to let them
perform the cruel duty they detested.

For their sakes he yielded, and went with them.
All the brotherhood would have followed their
beloved father, but none except the Irish were
allowed to leave.

And so they took again the path of exile. On
their way through France they experienced some
cowardly insults, but more chivalrous and gener-
ous proofs of love and honour. He seems not to
have resented anything but a mean blow given to
one of his monks, who was feeble and ill.

At Tours he spent the night by St. Martin's
tomb, and there the bishop found him, and
asked him to dine. At table some one asked
him why he was returning to his country. Then
he used strong language (there is always much
human nature and force of speech in those
Irish saints) : "That dog Thierry," he said, "has
driven me away from my brethren."

When he reached Nantes, his heart turned
back to his Luxeuil, and he wrote a letter, which
begins thus : —

" To his sweet sons, his dear scholars, his
brothers in the frugal life, to all the monks,
Columban the sinner,"

284 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

In this letter, Montalembert says, " his heart
opens altogether. Obscure, confused, passion-
ate, interrupted by a thousand recollections, a
thousand diverse agitations, this letter is never-
theless the most complete monument Columban
has left us of his genius and of his character.
With his own personal emotions are always
blending his pre-occupation with the present
and future destinies of his dear community of
Luxeuil. He prescribes the arrangements which
seem to him most likely to guarantee that
destiny, by purity of elections and interior har-
mony. He seems even to foresee the immense
development of the monastic colonies which were
to go forth from Luxeuil, in a passage where he
says, ' There where you shall find fit sites, there
where God shall build with you, go and prosper;
you and the thousands of souls that shall be born
of you.' It is delightful to see in this rigid and
proud soul paternal friendship and affection pre-
serving all its rights. He recalls with a tender
solicitude a brother who was not present at
the moment of his farewells. £ Keep Valdolene
always,' he says ; ' keep him, if he is still with
you. Oh, that God may do him good ; that
he may become humble; and give him from

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 285

me the kiss I was not able to give him
myself.'

" He recommends to his monks truth, strength
of mind, patience, but above all peace and con-
cord. He foresees in this endless question of
Easter, a subject of division ; he desires that they
should get rid of all who disturb the unanimity
of the house. Confessions, counsels crowd under
his pen. He addresses himself, now to the whole
community, now to a monk called Attalus, whom
he had intended to succeed him.

"'Thou knowest, my beloved Attalus, how little
it avails to form one body if we have not one
heart. As to me, my heart has been rent. I
wished to serve every one ; I have trusted every
one ; and I have become nearly mad in conse-
quence. Be thou then wiser than I have been ;
I would not have thee take up the burden which
has cost me so much. But thou knowest all
about it. Thou wilt know how to adapt the
precepts to every one. Thou wilt make allow-
ance for the diversities of character which are so
great among men. Thou wilt diversify thyself,
thou wilt multiply thyself for the good of those
who will obey thee with truth and love ; and all
the while even their affection must be feared, for

286 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

it may become a danger for thee. But what is
it that I am doing ? See, I am urging thee to
undertake that immense labour, from which I
myself am torn away.'

" Further on, it is grief which bursts out and
carries him away, but soon to give place to an
invincible courage. The recollections of classical
antiquity blending with the teachings of the
Gospel, inspire our Irishman with some of the
loftiest and most beautiful words ever uttered by
Christian genius. ' I had at first meant to write
thee a letter of sadness and tears ; but knowing
well that thy heart is overwhelmed with cares and
toils, I change my style; I seek to restrain thy
tears rather than to make them flow. I let
nothing but the sweetness be seen outside, and I
chain up the sorrow in the depths of my soul.
But here are my own tears that begin to flow ; I
must press them back ; it becomes not a good
soldier to weep in the front of the battle. After
all, what is happening to us is nothing very new.
Is it not what we have been preaching every day ?
Was there not once a philosopher who, being
wiser than others, was thrown into prison for
maintaining against the opinion of all that there
is only one God? The Gospels, moreover, are

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 287

full of all we need to encourage us. They have
indeed been written for this, to instruct the true
disciples of the crucified Christ to follow Him
with their cross. Our perils are many : the war
we wage is keen, and the enemy is terrible ; but the
reward is glorious, and the freedom of our choice
is manifest. Without adversaries no conflict, and
without conflict no crown. Where there is con-
flict there is courage, vigilance, fervour, patience,
fidelity, wisdom, firmness, prudence. Without
conflict misery and disaster. Thus, without conflict
no crown ; and I add, without liberty no dignity.'
" However, his letter has to be finished, and he
does not know how to set about it ; for he re-
commences again and again, and repeats himself
often. But others will take on themselves to
interrupt him, and to put an end to those over-
flowings of his heart. 'Here is some one,' he
says, ' who comes to say the ship is ready ; this
ship which is to take me, despite myself, back to
my own country. The end of the parchment
obliges me to finish my letter. Love has no
order, that is what makes it confused. I wanted
to condense everything in order to say everything.
I have not succeeded. Farewell, dear hearts of
mine ! Pray that I may live in God ! '

288 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

V.

After writing this letter, Columban was de-
tained at Nantes. The Bishop and the Court of
Neustria hurried his departure ; but the Irish
vessel, on which were embarked the possessions
and the companions of Columban, and which
he was to rejoin in a boat, having presented
itself at the mouth of the Loire, was driven
back by the waves, and remained three days
stranded on the shore. Then the captain made
the companions of Columban disembark with
their luggage and his, and continued his voyage.
And Columban was left free to go whither he
would.

Again the voice may have sounded in his
heart as so many years before at Bangor, " Leave
thy country, and thy father's house, and go where
I shall shew thee." For France had become his
country, and his monasteries the home of his
heart, and there was yet other work for him to
do. Not, however, among the fallen Christians
of France. That work was done; heart after
heart had been restored and raised ; district after
district had been brought into civilization and

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 289

cultivation. His work in France was done, and
would never perish. On the ground, and by
the race, he had won back to Christianity, not
a century afterwards the invading hosts of
Mohammed would be beaten back from the
West for ever by Charles Martel.

He and his Irish monks were to go further
afield ; to the heathen of Switzerland, and thence
to the lands harried and ravaged by the fierce
Lombards in Italy.

He went first to Soissons, where King Clotaire
II., son of Fredegonde, worsted and deprived of
much of his territory, " faithful to the hatreds of
his mother," hatreds in that Merovingian family,
generally stronger than their affections, welcomed
him fervently. To this king also Columban was
very frank as to the disorders of his life, which
he promised to amend. As Columban passed
through Paris, Meaux, and Champagne, the
nobles brought him their children, for his
benediction. And some of the beloved monks
of* his own monasteries were able to escape and
rejoin him.

At the head of this devoted band, among
whom was Attalus, whom he had mentioned
so especially in his letter from Nantes, he began

290 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

the new campaign for which he had longed all
his life, amongst nations still heathen : — " After
sixty years of labour consecrated to the reforma-
tion of kings and people already Christian, he
began the second phase of his life — preaching to
the infidel."

They went along the rivers, up the Rhine,
and up the Li m mat, and about the country
around the Lake of Constance. They found the
ruins of old Roman cities, and in one place
a deserted Christian church, desecrated by idols
which were worshipped by the pagans around.
All the eager impetuosity of Columban's character,
not at all dulled by age, awoke at the sight of
the people deluded by false worship. His chief
companion at this time was Gallus (St. Gall), a
high-born young Irishman, as fervent as himself,
whom he had trained from boyhood. Together
they burned the heathen temples and broke the
idols, especially one golden image, a relic of the
old Roman days. Some of the people listened,
and some were enraged. They were often driven
away with violence, but the spell of paganism
began to be broken.

And at Tuggen the men of Schwyz show
to-day the place of the idols which they over-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 291

turned, and the spring of which they drank
when they preached the faith to their indignant
forefathers.

" At Bregenz they had more success and some
conversions, and there they were able to stay
three years, though the mass of the people
were still impenetrable. Then the little colony
resumed their ccenobitic life. They had at first
to struggle with hunger ; for the people gave
them nothing, and they had nothing to live on
but the wild birds, who came to them like the
manna to the Israelites in the desert, or wild
fruits which they had to dispute with the beasts
of the forest. But soon they had a vegetable
garden with fruit trees. They had also a resource
in fishing. Columban himself made the nets;
Gall, the learned, eloquent preacher, cast them
into the lake, and often had a good haul of
fish."

There is a poetical legend connected with
Bregenz and the Lake of Constance. " One
night while Gall was silently watching his nets in
his boat, he heard the demon of the mountain
call to the demon of the waters. ' Here I am/
replied the water-spirit. c Arise then,' said the
mountain-spirit, 'and come and help me drive

292 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

away these strangers who have driven me from
my temple; it is enough work for both of us
together to expel him.' ' What is the good ? '
replied the water-demon ; ' here is one of them
on the edge of the water whose nets I have tried
to break, and I have never succeeded. He is
always praying, and never sleeps. We may do
what we can, we shall never get the better of
them.' Then Gall, in his boat, made the sign
of the cross, and said to them, ' In the name of
Jesus Christ, I command you to depart from
these places without daring to hurt any one.'
Then he made haste to land, and ran to wake
the Abbot Columban, who had the bell rung
at once for the night office ; but before the first
psalm was chanted, they heard on the tops of
the mountains the howling and wailing of the
demons, at first resounding furiously, and then
losing themselves in the distance, die away like
the confused murmurs of a routed army."

Columban was verging on his three-score years,
but his heart was as eager as ever with the true
Apostolic yearning to press ever on to the un-
trodden ground, to bring glad tidings to those
who had never heard. He had preached to the
Celts and the Germans. There were still the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 293

Slavonic tribes to be reached, and to those he
longed to pass on. But one night he saw in a
dream an angel who said to him : " See the world
before thee ; but stray not from thy path if thou
wouldst eat the fruit of thy labours." He believed
this vision to be a sign that the path he longed
to take was not for him, and he renounced his
choice.1

Circumstances indicated that his destination
must be Italy. At the moment of departure his
beloved disciple Gall was seized with fever, and
could not accompany him. Columban thought
this was a weak yielding to the body, and said
bitterly to him : " Ah, my brother, are you
already weary of the toils I have made you
endure ?" And then he even forbade him if
he separated from him to "say the Mass."

This command of Columban could not be
obeyed, nor was his prophecy fulfilled. It was
but the temporary injustice of a passionate heart
that had often been wounded. The paths of both
were protected by the same Hand of wisdom and
love. Both served their Lord to the end devotedly
and effectually, and before the end we shall see
that their hearts were tenderly united once more.
1 Montalembert.

294 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

But Columban seems to have entered with a
sorrowful foreboding; unusual with him on the
then difficult and' dangerous journey across the
Alpine passes into Italy.

Montalembert thinks it was the recollection of
this journey that dictated one of his Instructions
to his monks. " O mortal life ! how thou hast
deceived, seduced, blinded ! Thou fliest, and
art nothing ; thou appearest, and art but a shadow ;
thou mountest up, and art but smoke ; thou fliest
in coming, and thou comest flying ; alike at the
starting-point, different at the goal ; sweet to the
senseless, bitter to the wise; those who love thee
know thee not, and those only know thee who
despise thee. What art thou then, O human
life ? Thou art the way of mortals, and not their
life; thou beginnest with sin, and closest with
death ; thou art therefore but a road, always
unequal, long for some, short for others ; broad
for one, narrow for another ; joyous for some,
sad for others, but for all equally swift and with-
out return. Therefore, oh miserable, human life,
we must sound thy depths, question thee, but
never trust in thee. We must traverse without
sojourning. No one dwells on a high-road ; we
have but to walk over it to reach the fatherland."

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 295

And so with his one companion, the Burgundian
Attalus, who was to have succeeded him as
Abbot of Luxeuil, who did succeed him as Abbot
of Bobbio, Columban left Gall behind, and
entered Italy to pass the rest of his life. He
was cordially welcomed by Agilulph, the Lombard
King, who gave him a territory called Bobbio, a
remote gorge of the Apennines, not far from the
famous shores of Trebia, where Hannibal having
crossed the Alps defeated the Romans. There
was an old church in the place, but the monastery
had to be built. The old Abbot insisted on
sharing the labours of the workmen, carrying
planks of pine up the rough mountain paths.

He made Bobbio another Luxeuil, — a place of
spiritual training and intellectual and manual
labour for Northern Italy. Quite recently a
palimpsest of Cicero has been recovered from the
Irish Abbot's library there, which still bears the
inscription, " Liber sancti Columbani de Bobbio!'
And there at sixty-eight he wrote an epistle to a
friend, full of the classic recollections of his
youth at Bangor, — Sappho, the Golden Fleece,
the Judgment of Paris : —

Inclyta vates
Nomine Sappho

296 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Versibus istis
Dulce solebat
Edere carmen
Dulciloquorurii
Carmina linquens
Frivola nostra
Suscipe lsetus.

The old man's spirits had recovered. No doubt
in his heart he had long forgiven St. Gall. His
presence was a centre of light and affection and
healthy activity. And as usual he was amply
provided with enemies and battles. The Arians
of Lombardy kept his controversial weapons keen
and polished to the end.

Towards the close the old love of the solitude
with Nature and with God came back on him.
He retired to a cave in the side of one of the
mountains near his abbey, a.d. 615. Here at
the age of seventy-two he died, amongst the
farewells of his monks, dearly beloved.

VI.

The life of St. Gall, St. Columban's beloved
pupil and friend, must be continued in order to
give the beautiful story of their reconciliation, and

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 297

the generous atonement made by the master's
dying lips.

When the two parted — Gall, stricken with fever,
constrained to stay behind in Switzerland, the
land of which he was to be recognized as the
"Apostle," — Columban, with a fire of wounded
love in his heart, to be the bulwark of the faith
and centre of new life in Italy — the story of Gall
goes on thus l : —

" When they were driven out of that neigh-
bourhood, and Abbot Columban turned his steps
to Italy, Gallus was prevented by sickness from
following him ; and this circumstance was pro-
ductive of much blessing to the tribes of that
district; since but for this illness, Gallus would
never have become what he did for the country.
Gallus repaired with his fishing-nets to a priest
called Willimar, who lived in an old castle, and who
had once already entertained him with the Abbot
Columban, and pointed out a residence for them.
When, by his affectionate care, Gallus had re-
covered, he wished to find a place in the wilder-
ness to build in. With this object he addressed
himself to the deacon Hillibald, whose business
it was to provide his convent with fish and game,
1 Neander's Denkwiirdigkeiten.

298 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

and who therefore often traversed the wilderness,
and knew its paths well. ' Attended by him, he
set out to seek a place adapted for building, and
well provided with fresh water. The deacon gave
him a terrific description of the beasts in the
forest ; but Gall us answered, ' It is the saying of
the Apostle, If God be for us, who can be against
us ? All things work together for good to those
who love God. He who delivered Daniel from
the den of lions, can also deliver me from the
power of the wild beasts.' Then the deacon said,
'Only put some bread and a small net into thy
knapsack, and to-morrow I will guide thee into
the wilderness. The God who hath brought thee
to us from the far country, will send His angel
with us, as once with His servant Tobias, and
will show us a place suitable to thy pious work.'
Armed by prayer, Gall us set out on his journey.
When they had journeyed about three hours
Hillibald said, c Let us now take some bread and
water, that we may be strengthened to go the rest
of the way.' Gallus answered, ' My son, do
thou what is needful to strengthen thee ; I am
resolved to taste nothing until God has shown
me my desired place of rest/ But the deacon
replied, * Nay ; we will share the inconvenience^

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 299

and then also the joy with one another.' Then
they pursued their way until the evening, when
they came to a stream full of fish, which precipi-
tated itself from a rock. They succeeded in
catching many fish ; the deacon lighted a fire ; he
cooked the fish, and took bread from the knap-
sack. Gallus meanwhile went a little apart to
pray ; but he entangled himself in the bushes
and fell. The deacon hastened forward to help
him, .but Gallus motioned him back, saying,
' Leave me ; this is the appointed place for my
resting-place throughout my life ; here will I
dwell.' He consecrated the place by prayer ; and
when he arose from his knees he made a cross
out of the branch of a tree, and planted it in the
ground ; and on the cross he hung some relics,
which he carried in a basket round his neck.
Then, again, they both fell on their knees in
prayer, and there they founded the convent which
afterwards went by the name of St. Gall. There
Gallus laboured in the education of youth, and
in the training of monks and priests, by whom
the seeds of Christian knowledge were farther
spread, and thence he diffused many spiritual
and temporal blessings among the people. When
he received presents from the great men of the

3oo EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

country, he used to assemble the poor of the
district, and distribute what he had received
amongst them. On one of these occasions, one of
his scholars said to him, ' My father, I have a
costly silver vessel, beautifully embossed ; if you
will permit me I will keep it for a sacramental
chalice.' But Gallus answered, ' My son, think
on the words of Peter, " Gold and silver have I
none," and in order not to do anything contrary
to so wholesome an example, hasten to employ
the vessel for the good of the poor. My teacher,
Columban, used to distribute the Body of the
Lord in vessels of common metal.' "

" The vacant see of Constance was offered to
Gallus ; but he preferred to continue his quiet
labours in the monastery, and refused the office.
He recommended for the office in his stead the
deacon John, a native of the country under his
guidance" (Gallus had an especial gift for lan-
guages, and spoke and preached to the people of
the land in their own German dialects). " When,
at the consecration of the bishop, a great multi-
tude flocked together, Gallus availed himself of
this opportunity in order to describe to the new
converts the love of God as manifested in creation
and redemption, and to lay before them the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 301

great scheme of God for the salvation of men,
and " (although he spoke three languages, prefer-
ring, it is to be supposed, the use, on this
occasion, of the lips of a native) " what he said
in the Latin language was interpreted by John
into German for the benefit of the assembled
multitude."

Of the Creation he said, " God created beings
endowed with reason to praise Him ; and by
Him, in Him, and through Him to live happily.
This cause of your creation you should recognize,
my Christian brethren, lest ye should have to
regard yourselves as lost beings, destroying your
dignity by a brutish life. For that God, who is
the highest good, resolved to create beings in
His own image, endowed with reason, that ac-
knowledging Him as their Lord, and the Author
of their existence, and filled with His love, they
should rejoice to find their happiness in Him." l

Then he deduces the origin of all evil, from
the desire of reasonable beings to be the basis of
their own existence, and to find life and happiness
in themselves ; thence arose their inward void,
inasmuch as the creature, if turned away from
the fountain of life, and abandoned to itself, must
1 Neander's Denkwiirdigkeite?i.

302 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

sink from fulness into emptiness, from existence
into nothingness. He closed the whole discourse
with this exhortation, " We who are the unworthy
messengers of faith in this age, we conjure you,
in the name of Christ, that ye renounce the
devil and all his works, as ye have once renounced
him in your baptism ; that ye acknowledge the
one true God and Father, who ruleth eternally in
heaven : the Eternal Wisdom who for us became
a man in time, and the Holy Ghost, the earnest
of eternal bliss granted us on this pilgrimage ; and
that ye seek to live as becomes the children of
God. Be ye kind one to another, forgiving one
another, as God has forgiven you your sins. The
Almighty God, who wills that all men should be
saved, and should come to a knowledge of the
truth, who sends His message to your ears by the
ministry of my tongue, may He Himself cause it
to bring forth fruit in your heart by His grace.'1

The story of the reconciliation of Columban
is told in the life of St. Magnus.1 On the eve
of their separation and the departure of Colum-
ban into Switzerland, Columban is said to have
addressed these words to Magnus, which show

1 Quoted by Miss Margaret Stokes, in her Six Weeks in
the Apennines. It is also given briefly by Montalembert.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 503

indeed that however indignant and unjust
Columban may have been, the love for his son
in the faith was unquenched in his heart from
the beginning, even when he seemed the hardest.
" I tell thee, Magnus, what thou art to do. I
wish that thou shouldst remain with Gallus until
the time comes for me to depart this life, and if
the Holy Spirit should reveal to you the fact of
my illness, it would then be pleasing to me that
thou shouldst come to my side. But in the event
of my death, in whatsoever manner it may take
place, and if God grant that it may be revealed
to thee, then hasten with all speed to my tomb
and to my brethren, and there thou shalt receive
my letter and my crosier, which bring to Gallus,
that he may know he is not condemned by me."
# # # # #

" Now it happened on a certain day, after some
time had elapsed, while they were betaking them-
selves to their couches to rest after the fatigue of
the office of matins, at first dawning of the day,
Gallus, the man of God, called Magnus his
deacon, and said unto him, 'Prepare for the
administration of the sacred offering, that I may
be able to celebrate the holy mysteries without
delay.' And Magnus said, ' Wilt thou indeed cele-

304 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

brate the Mass, father ? ' And Gallus answered
him, 'Through the watches of the night, I have
learned through a dream that my father Columban
has this day passed from the trouble of this life
to the joys of Paradise. I must therefore offer
the sacrifice of salvation for his repose.'

" Afterwards Gallus laid it on Magnus not to
think his petition too heavy a burden, but to
hasten across the Alps to Bobbio to see if his
dream were indeed true, ' and to inquire what
has been done concerning my Abbot.'

"The deacon throwing himself at his master's
feet complained of this journey through a land
unknown to him. But the blessed man with a
soft voice admonished him not to fear, saying,
6 Go, and the Lord will direct thy footsteps.' And
he went ; and when he arrived at the monastery
of Bobbio, he found all had happened as it had
been revealed to his father in the vision. He
remained one night with the brethren, who gave
him a letter for the blessing of Gallus, containing an
account of the passing of the revered Columban.
They also sent by the hand of the deacon the
crosier of Columban, saying that the holy Abbot
before his death had declared that through means
of this well-known pledge Gallus would be

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 305

absolved (know he was forgiven). Then Magnus
hastened on his journey, and arrived on the
eighth day. He went at once to Gallus bearing
the letter and the staff. Having read the letter,
Gallus, retaining in his full heart the love of his
dear father, shed many tears, and disclosed to
the assembled fathers the causes of his grief.
Then they celebrated the memory of the father
with prayer and oblations." x

The time would fail us to tell of all the fruits
of Columbans work in France, through his own
teaching, and through his successors and his
countrymen, many of them more or less moved
by his influence and example.

Montalembert gives one chapter to "the
influence of the disciples of Columban in Italy
and Switzerland," and another to the " Colonies
of Luxeuil."

In Italy the Missions of the Irish Saints were

continued at Lucca by Fridiano, — St. Finnian —

(some have thought of Moville. St. Columba's

old friend and temporary foe, no longer grudging

books, or life, but spending himself for the people,

turning the course of rivers and giving forth

waters of life. But this is disputed). St. Donatus

1 v. Miss Margaret Stokes, Six Weeks in the Apennines.

u

3o6 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.

and St. Andrew lived and laboured at Fiesole, and
Andrew's sister St. Brigid at Lobaco among the
mountains, St. Comgall at Pavia, St. Sillan
(Silas) and his sister Mionghar (Mingarda) at or
about Lucca, in much haze and halo of legend,
yet still leaving traces in Italy of a true life
come forth from Ireland.

In Switzerland, St. Gall, "the Apostle of
Switzerland," whose monastery became a Luxeuil,
a centre of faith and civilization for the moun-
tain land ; and Fridolin, the Apostle of Glarus.

Far and wide through Europe, rekindling the
faith in the hearts of lapsed Christians, inspiring
it among heathen who had never known the
name of Christ, or only known it to misunder-
stand it through unChrist-like men and women,
the light from Celtic Ireland spread — Patrick's
Ireland in the far Western Sea — through genuine
Irish Saints of the type of Columba and Colum-
ban, fervent, imaginative, impetuous, tender, ever
fresh fountains of life.

It might indeed, as Montalembert says, "be
enough glory for Columban to have been one of
the mediators who worked under the inspiration
of Christianity for the fusion of Celts and
Germans, the two greatest races of the West."

ST. BONIFACE, APOSTLE
OF GERMANY.

ST. BONIFACE.1

The first English Missionary Bishop martyred
among the heathen, but not the last. From the
cold snows of Friesland to the Islands of the
Pacific Ocean, and to the heart of Africa; from
the ninth century to the nineteenth, our English
Church has sent forth her sons to join the
" noble army " with whom she daily praises God
in the Te Deum. And she is sending them still.

In the century between St. Columban's death
in the cave among the Apennines (a.d. 615), and
Boniface's first going forth from his abbey to be
a Missionary among the heathen in Friesland
(a.d. 716), much had happened. There is
nothing more suggestive to the imagination in
repeopling the past than comparative tables of
dates. Numbers are certainly at least as necessary

1 The larger part of this life of St. Boniface has been
already published in the writer's Martyrs and Saints of the
Twelve First Centuries. But it is necessary to complete
the group in this volume.

310 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

to history as to chemistry, to give us the true
elements, the true proportions, and the true
values. Chronology and geography not less but
more, as historical study advances, are felt to
be indeed the two eyes of History.

To see who were the people actually living
in the world at one time, is just one of the things
that begins to transform Chronicles into History.
For instance, it gives much vividness and reality
to our conception of the lives of Bede and
Boniface, to remember how these two men, with
such different characters and careers, were living
in this world together, serving Christ and the
world together in their diverse ways.

Bede was born in 674, ten years after the
Synod of Whitby, which decided the assimilation
of the English Church in rites and organization
with the rest of Christendom, and sent the noble
Celtic monks back to the North. For forty
years he never left his monastery of Jarrow,
leading the life of a student and a professor there.
Six hundred monks were under his instructions,
and scholars flocked to him from all sides. " I
am my own secretary," he says ; " I make my
own notes ; I am my own librarian." He lived
in a world of books — the Greek books Arch-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 311

bishop Theodore of Tarsus had introduced into our
England, as well as the Latin ; Plato and Aristotle
in Greek, as well as Seneca and Cicero, Lucretius
and Ovid, and the ever-venerated Virgil, were
read and loved in England. The study of the
Sacred Scriptures, so dear to the Celtic monks
— from Ireland and Iona — had become Bede's
peculiar inheritance, his joy, and his vocation.
But he was no mere man of books. To him the
past, the men of the past, the languages of the
past were living, because continuous, flowing on
into the present. The Saints of the past were to
him a living Communion, because his eyes were
open to see and reverence the Saints of his own
day, and even those not entirely of his own
section of thought. He could understand St.
John because he could understand St. Aidan.
He could understand the Greek of the Gospels,
because he translated it in life and in word into
the life and speech of his own English people.
Most significant and beautiful is the tender
story of his death.

" Dearest master," one of us then said to him,
" we have one chapter to translate " (of the Gospel
of St. John into English), " will it be grievous to
thee if we ask thee any further ? " He answered,

312 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

" It is quite easy ; take the pen and write
quickly."

"He lived through the day, with great love
and joy and fear, longing to depart and be with
Christ." Then at evening the same scholar who
had written for him on that morning said to
him, "Dearest master, there is only one thought
left to write." He answered, "Write quickly."
Soon the scholar replied, " Now this thought
is written." He answered, "Thou hast well
said. It is finished." l And with the Gloria, with
the name of the Holy Ghost on his lips, he
breathed his last breath. Bede died in peaceful
Jarrow in 735, at sixty years old. Boniface died
in 755, twenty years afterwards, an old man of
seventy-five, surrounded by the fierce heathen
he came to save, he also with the book of
the Gospels in his dying hands. So long these
two soldiers had lived parallel lives, serving in
their different parts of the field and departments
of the service — not knowing each other, yet
labouring for the civilization and Christianization
of England and Germany.

Through all their lives, peaceful as Bede's was,
the struggle was going on fiercely between the
1 Neander's Denkiuiirdigkeiten.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 313

different kingdoms of Saxon England, with every
now and then a combat with the Britons of
Strathclyde and North and West Wales. The
Celtic monks and their disciples had been work-
ing throughout the land. At the same time the
organization of the dioceses had been advancing
from Canterbury, Archbishop Theodore summon-
ing national ecclesiastical councils, which were
the virtual beginning of the great National
Councils of the English Parliament.1

But many a wilderness was left little touched
by Christianity in our Eastern Fens. The
monasteries were still Mission Stations in many
parts, though dioceses and parishes were con-
solidating.

Boniface's own birthplace, Crediton, was on
the verge of the British corner of England —
of Cornwall, still speaking the language, in a
measure, of Ireland and Iona, open to especial
Missions of Irish Saints of her own. But the
monasteries in which Boniface lived and was
trained were Benedictine.

It is again interesting, in tracing the links
between the various races of our land, to observe
that the first Mission on which St. Boniface went,
1 v. Green's History of the English People.

314 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

was to Friesland, to the aid of St. Willibrord,
who himself had visited Ireland to learn and be
trained there, and had spent twelve years in the
Irish monasteries, as so many young Englishmen
at the end of the seventh century still did, to enter
into their devoted study of the Holy Scriptures,
and to catch the inspiration of their devotion and
missionary fervour.

Winfried, afterwards named Boniface, was born
at Crediton, among the pleasant hills of Devon-
shire, near Exeter. One wishes he had not
changed his beautiful old English name with
its sweet breathing of peace for any other.

At five years old the little child's heart seems
to have been awakened by a heavenly touch
never forgotten. Good monks from the monas-
teries near were in the habit, according to the
custom of the Celtic or Irish communities, of
going on missions through the neighbouring
countries, sometimes preaching on the village
greens, and resting under lowly cottage roofs ;
at other times accepting the hospitality of the
great men of the place, and then hallowing the
houses of their hosts with their prayers and
teachings. And the child Winfried, listening
(as a thousand years afterwards the boy John

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 315

Coleridge Patteson listened to Bishop Selwyn),
with wondering eyes, to the words of the
strangers, probably himself unnoticed, drank
them in until the Spirit speaking through them
became in him a well of living water, springing
up and flowing forth as a fountain of life for
the great German land. Henceforth it seemed
to the child that the home where those good
men lived must be as the very gate of heaven,
and there he desired to live. At first his father
opposed, but the boy's purpose continued stead-
fast, until at last, when he was about thirteen,
he was brought to the verge of death by a serious
illness ; and then the father accepted his son's
desire as a Divine vocation, and gave him to
God with an acquiescence as generous and un-
reserved as in after days the father of John
Coleridge Patteson.

He passed many years in the Abbey at Exeter,
and then he removed to the Abbey of Nutcell,
in the diocese of Winchester, one of the great
schools of the time. There he studied diligently,
and learned all that was to be learned — poetry,
rhetoric, history. There also, above all, he
steeped his heart and mind in the Holy Scrip-
tures, and was in time appointed a teacher in

3i6 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

literature and history, having always much
delight in being among the young. At thirty
he was ordained priest, and from that time was
chiefly occupied in preaching to the people
around, and in the cure of souls. His ability
and judgment were early recognized. And he
was sent on a deputation to the Archbishop of
Canterbury. He was also much consulted in
the Councils of his Church, and was honoured
and courted by all.

But deep in his heart all the time was burning
a fire of missionary zeal, fed doubtless by the
stories told from monastery to monastery of the
work of Willibrord in Friesland, and of other
missionaries. Especially he longed to carry the
Gospel to those ancient German lands from
which his own forefathers had come. And in
a.d. 716, his friend Abbot Wimbert gave his
sanction to his going forth as a missionary to
the heathen of Friesland. He needed not to
learn any new language to make himself under-
stood. For a hundred years, from the coasts
of Great Britain the tide of Christian life had
been flowing back in missionary enterprise to
the Continent of Europe ; and through what is
now the North of France, Switzerland, Belgium,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 317

Bavaria, and Hesse, on the mountains, and
among the primeval forests, and on the sites
of abandoned Roman cities, were founded
monasteries peopled by men from Great Britain,
followers of Columban, St. Gall, and other ad-
venturous spiritual pioneers. It is interesting
to remember that, as regards England, the first
missionary impulse seems to have been given
by a young priest named Egbert, by one who,
like so many others, had found instruction and
inspiration among the monastic communities in
Ireland, and had devoted himself to evangelizing
the Continent; but just as he was starting on
his voyage he was arrested by illness, was left
behind by his companion, and was never able
to follow.

Friesland was then in a state of wild turmoil
on account of the war between King Radbrod
and Charles M artel.

(It is of Radbrod that the story is told that
once, when considering the possibility of be-
coming a Christian, he asked a missionary as
a preliminary inquiry what had become of the
kings his ancestors who had not believed ; the
missionary replied that they were in torment
in the other world ; whereupon Radbrod replied,

318 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

" I see no good in my going to heaven with
a few poor people. I shall keep to the religion
of my fathers ! " And he became a violent
persecutor.)

After remaining the summer in Friesland,
where Willibrord of Yorkshire, trained in the
northern monasteries, had long been labouring,
Boniface returned to England, the steadfastness
of his purpose tested, as so often, by disappoint-
ment. Two years he remained at his monastery,
where, on the death of his old friend Abbot
Wimbert, he was elected Abbot. But the passion
for clearing new ground, which has always been
such a large element in English life, was not
to be quenched in the heart of Boniface. He
longed to penetrate new lands, found new
churches, monasteries, schools ; to bring the
good news for the first time to new tribes of
men, yet allied to his own in speech and blood.
He was moved, as he said, " by the love of
travel and the fear of Christ " ; the loving fear
of selfishly hoarding a treasure which was meant to
enrich the world, and the IVandertrieb of our race.

Boniface had reached the sober age of thirty-
eight when he set out on his missionary career
again, this time never to return.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 319

His thirty-seven remaining years were to be
devoted to the glorious work given him to do.

No doubt his first unsuccessful missionary
expedition, with the interval of rest in the English
monastery afterwards, had been no lost or waste
time to him. He had learned, at all events, one
of the first lessons in all work, to see its especial
difficulties.

Before proceeding again on a pilgrimage to
a field of foreign missions, he went to Rome,
with a letter from his Bishop, Daniel of Win-
chester, to Pope Gregory II. A very different
journey for Boniface from what it had been
when four centuries before Alban of Verulam
went to Rome (according to the legend), to
complete his education there ; the Roman roads
broken into disconnected fragments, the military
stations and post-houses gone, the way beset
with perils from wild tribes of invaders, none
of which recognized each other or themselves
as the germs (which nevertheless they were) of
future nations : a world without form and void,
of chaotic ruins and chaotic beginnings; the
Church the only organization left standing
throughout it, like a highly-developed verte-
brate organism amidst a floating mass of mol-

320 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

luscous or crustaceous creatures, which wore
whatever bony substance they had mainly out-
side, in the form of bristling armour wherewith
to destroy each other.

He went with a band of English pilgrims, and
on the way through Gaul and Italy they made
their devotions at the shrines of the martyrs, who
had mostly belonged to the old Roman vanished
world. And when he reached the city, what a
different Rome ! In Alban's Rome Christians
might still be thrown to the wild beasts in the
Coliseum ; on the Capitol and all around stood
the temples of the gods, basilicas, theatres. For
Boniface all that ancient world had vanished —
emperor, " senate and people," gods and goddesses,
basilicas transformed into churches, pillars of
temples into pillars of Christian shrines, statues
which could not be transformed broken up, or
only saved by being lost.

Yet still, still more than ever, to Boniface
Rome was the imperial and metropolitan city ;
imperial because Christian, metropolis because
the citadel of the city of God. Every church
on the Capitol of the dethroned Jove, or in the
catacombs of the martyrs, was a trophy of victory
over a whole ancient world of vanquished foes,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 321

and might become a triumphal arch into a new
world of conquest over the new heathenism of
the North, which Boniface had vowed his life to
overcome. From the Vatican, where the martyrs
now venerated throughout Christendom had
illumined Rome in their agony as living torches
from Nero's gardens ; from the Capitol where
the Ara Coeli, the Altar of Heaven, had replaced
the altar of Jove ; from the Aventine, whence the
great Gregory had sent Augustine to convert
Boniface's own heathen forefathers, the English
Winfried might well gather inspiration to go
forth and fell any sacred oak of Thor the
Thunderer, or to encounter any perils among the
heathen of the North.

At Rome, moreover, he touched the histo-
rical past of Christianity. The language, which
for him was the language of the Church and the
sacred books, was still at Rome, as to St. Agnes
or St. Crecilia, St. Augustine or St. Gregory, the
everyday life. The Devonshire Winfried did
not need to learn a new language for Thuringia
and the Rhineland. But in Rome he distrusted
his scholastic Latin, which he had learned as a
foreign tongue, and feared to express his creed
except in writing.

322 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

From Rome also the monk from remote
Devonshire could gain a new wide outlook over
the Eastern and Western world.

Severed as the Church was, even then, the
great destructive tide of Mohammedanism, which
had laid waste the Churches of Asia Minor and
Africa, of Polycarp and Augustine, and was rolling
up through Bulgaria on the East and through
conquered Spain on the South into the heart of
Europe, could be felt, even from the Seven Hills,
surging against the whole of Christendom.

Unity, external unity, might well seem to
him, looking from that central height over the
devastated East and the stormy heathen North,
not a mere dream of some far-off paradise, but a
necessity of bare existence.

Three times in his missionary life of thirty-
eight years Boniface came to Rome : first, in 719,
with a letter from his friend, Bishop Daniel of
Winchester, to introduce him to Pope Gregory
II., and to receive his sanction and counsel;
secondly, in 722, summoned by the same Pope
to report results of his three years' labour, and
receive consecration as bishop (regio?iarius) of
the new mission ; thirdly, seventeen years after-
wards, in 739, at his own desire, to see the new

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 323

Pope, Gregory III., to tell of his 100,000 Ger-
man converts, and to receive fresh powers as
Archbishop of Mainz. Gregory, with the true
tact and instinct of the ruler, perceived at once
his capability for his vocation, and sent him away
with the encouragement of his sympathy and the
sanction of his authority, armed also with letters
to Charles Martel, then the great ruler of the
Christianized Franks, entreating him to aid the
English missionary in converting the Saxon
tribes Charles was endeavouring to subdue, and
also empowering Boniface to restore to the faith
the half-lapsed Christians, remnants of the Chris-
tianity of the old Roman frontier, and to organize
or gather together the scattered communities
founded during the past century by the Irish
missionaries. For from the beginning to the end
the work of Boniface was twofold — winning new
converts from the outside barbarian world, and
gathering into unity of communion and discipline
the lapsed or disorganized Christians already there.
He went first to Thuringia ; and there through
the great Thuringian forest, then all forest (after-
wards Martin Luther's land), our Devonshire
Winfried went up and down, preaching and bap-
tizing, often in hunger and poverty, and peril of

324 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

life, but never weary of gathering into the fold
the lost and wandering sheep altogether outside,
or of gathering together the scattered sheep from
solitary hermitages or small communities, who
were in danger from their isolation of being again
absorbed into the heathen world around.

From Thuringia he made an expedition to
Friesland, the first scene of his missionary labours,
never forgotten by his heart, and so strangely
interwoven with his missionary life from its be-
ginning to its martyr close. It was opened again
now to Christian work by the death of the heathen
king, Radbrod, and Boniface laboured there for
two or three years assisting his countryman, Arch-
bishop Willibrord. Willibrord much wanted to
keep him as his coadjutor and successor ; but
Boniface was too essentially a pioneer and founder
to be able to stop in regions already half won.
He returned to Thuringia, and on his way back,
as he passed through the land of the Rhine and
the Moselle, one story is told of him which
illustrates the winning charm by which he drew
fellow-labourers around him, and kept them
faithful to the end.

On the banks of the Moselle, near ancient
Roman Treves (where St. Athanasius had so-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 325

journed, and where St. Augustine's soldier-friends
had found the life of St. Anthony, which changed
their lives and gave the final enkindling touch to
his conversion), Boniface was received hospit-
ably by the venerable Abbess Addula. At table,
according to the custom of the times, a boy of
fifteen, fresh from school, the Abbess' grandson,
Gregory, read a passage from the Latin Bible.

" You read well, my son," said Boniface, " if
you understand what you read."

The boy, not catching his meaning, said he
perfectly understood.

"Well then," said Boniface, "tell me how you
understand it."

The boy began to read the passage again.

Then Boniface said, " No, my son, that is not
what I mean. I want you to translate what you
have read into your native language."

The boy at once acknowledged that he could
not do this. So when he had read it again dis-
tinctly, Boniface translated it into German, and
preached on it to the whole company. And the
Word sank so deep into the boy's heart, that
nothing would satisfy him but to go himself with
Boniface to learn from him to understand the
Holy Scriptures.

326 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

" If thou wilt not give me a horse," he said to
his grandmother the Abbess, " I will go with him
on foot."

The Abbess saw that a Divine power had
touched the lad's heart, and she gave him a horse
and a servant, and suffered him to go away with
Boniface, whom he followed thenceforth whither-
soever he went among the heathen in the forests,
to Rome, and finally to his martyr death.

And after his master's death Gregory con-
tinued to follow his footsteps till he was an old
man of seventy, teaching the young, and making
his monastery a training-school of Missionaries.

In Thuringia, Boniface baptized many thou-
sands of idolaters, destroying their temples, and
built churches. The form of renunciation which
he demanded of these German converts indicates
the discrimination and thoroughness of his work.
He was not content merely with the usual form,
" I renounce the devil and all his works." He
asked, " Dost thou renounce Woden, Seator, and
Freya ? " No vague promises of general good-
ness would satisfy him. The especial temptations
of each were to be especially renounced.

From Thuringia he wrote to Pope Gregory,
speaking of his success, and asking his counsel

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 327

about some practical difficulties. In reply, the
Pope congratulated him, and desired him to repair
again to Rome. That second visit was doubt-
less of great importance in Boniface's life. This
time he looked out from the Seven Hills on no
new work, no unexplored land. He had surveyed
his ground, tried his weapons, found out his diffi-
culties, and trained many of his fellow-labourers.

From Rome Winfried went forth the second
time as Boniface (the new name given him there),
bishop (regionarius) of the new lands, with
authority to claim the obedience of all Christians
already existing there, or to be converted.
From the ancient trophies of past victories he
went forth ; from the dethroned Jove of the
Capitol, to cut down the sacred oak of the
Teutonic Thor in Hesse.

Soon after his second return to Germany he
found many of his apparent converts hopelessly
mixing up the new faith and its sacred rites with
the old. He determined, therefore, that the
moment had come for a visible manifestation
that the two could not be combined. There was
an enormous oak in the forests of Hesse, near
the village of Giesmar, sacred to Thor. Boni-
face went forth with his clergy to fell it publicly

328 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

to the ground. It was regarded on both sides as
a trial of strength. The heathen must already, in
spite of their menacing attitude, have been in
some measure shaken, to allow of such an attempt
being made at all. Boniface bravely took the
axe in. his own hands. The heathen multitude
awaited the result in silence.

After a few strokes a mighty wind seemed
suddenly to sway its lofty branches, and the
grand old tree crashed down, splitting with its
weight into four huge pieces.

Then the heathen confessed their gods to
have been vanquished, and at once acknowledged
themselves subjects of this new Lord, whom they
saw to be so strong, and whom Boniface declared
to be so merciful and ready to forgive. A little
forest oratory was built at once of the wood of
the fallen shrine. It was the first church of the
country. But great as the victory was, it was
only the beginning of the conquest. It is re-
markable that this event is almost the only
approach to miracle in St. Boniface's life. He
never claimed to work miracles. The claim to
miracle-working was made by Adalbert, one of
the unattached monks, whose opposition was one
of his chief difficulties.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 329

One characteristic of Boniface's work seems to
have been its resemblance to the methods of
working in our own times. Around the story
of the earlier Irish missionaries play far more
of the glow and twilight mystery of legend.
They were principally hermits and recluses, like
the Fathers of the Desert. They went into the
wilderness not so much to seek for the heathen
as to find solitude and freedom for a disciplined
life. They became centres of civilization simply
by being civilized. They spread the light of
Christianity by simply gathering it into a focus
and shining. They felled the trees in the forest-
depths and made them into dwellings and
chapels ; they tilled fields, sowed and reaped,
made nets, and fished in the lakes and rivers,
while the wild tribes around them looked on and
learned. They said to themselves or to each
other in raptures of contemplation and devotion
(seeing Jesus as He walked among them), " Be-
hold the Lamb of God ! " — and the heathen
people drew near and listened, and found the
Christ.

They settled (like St. Gall) among the ruins
of some ruined Roman city, again lapsed into
wild forest, taking the stones of the deserted

33o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

temples to build their churches, and breaking in
pieces the graven images which the wild tribes
around had dreaded or worshipped as relics of
vanished supernatural beings. On Sundays and
holy days St. Columban would carry a heavy
volume of Sacred Scriptures on his shoulder into
the forest-depths to hold converse with God, and
the people watching, came to perceive that these
mysterious parchments had voices, and that there
was an unseen God and Friend who can speak
to us and. be spoken to. The writings of St.
Columban and others of these monks are, as we
have seen, full of deep spiritual piety.

And so carrying on this inward combat, lead-
ing this inward life, they were doubtless also
combating and conquering for the world around
them. An intense fire of self-renouncing and
enrapt devotion shines out from these early
Missionaries, the new Fathers of the Desert in
Burgundy and Switzerland, and along the frontiers
of old Rome, lapsed again into wilderness ; and
also a tender glow as from the paradise and
childhood of the world. The "Spirit of the
Mountain," speaking from his lonely height to
the " Spirit of the Waters," acknowledges the
mystic power of these strangers. Savage beasts,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 331

wolves and bears, fawn on them ; birds of prey
bring them food; timid, hunted creatures trust
them and take refuge with them. Their story
comes to us like soft music across the wide waters
of the past. But with Boniface we seem to speak
in the language of to-day, and in some ways the
contrast may seem like coming from poetry to
prose ; from some lovely, quaint old ballad to the
less fascinating literature of a missionary report.
We have however but to recover the poetic
gold by digging deeper for it ; and if we do
we shall certainly find it, not in grains but in
nuggets.

Boniface worked no physical miracles, unless
we except the fall of the Sacred Oak of Thor.
Once indeed, it is said, a huge bird opportunely
dropped a fish above his table when he had not
much on it ; but the attention does not seem to
have been repeated. The source of his supplies
were not ravens or angels, but contributions from
friends in his old English home of books and
clothes, and food and money. The miracles
wrought for him were in hearts moved to help
him. His one great miracle was the conversion
of Germany. Before all and through all he was
a missionary. He went into the wilderness not

532 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

for its solitude, but because the wandering sheep
were there.

From this great purpose he never seemed to
have swerved for a moment. If he seeks from
the Abbess Eadburga a beautiful manuscript of
the Epistles of St. Peter, written in golden letters,
it is to move the admiration of his Germans.
For himself another kind of gold was more
beautiful. As he said at the Council of Tivoli,
" Formerly the priests were of gold, and they used
chalices of wood. Now the chalices are of gold,
and the priests of wood.''

And in his conflicts, whether mistaken or not,
with some of the earlier monks — Irish and others
— it was (as with St. Cyprian of old) the safety,
the very existence of the scattered flock which he
sought in his contests for unity and his efforts at
gathering them together.

For his fellow-labourers, and for his susten-
ance, Bishop Boniface looked chiefly to his old
English home, and thence they were liberally
sent. As he worked unremittingly, the fruits of
his mission so increased from day to day, that
he obtained many fellow-labourers from England.
" And also from the convents of Great Britain
came a swarm of widows, virgins, mothers, sisters,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 333

cousins of the Missionaries, eager to share their
labours and their perils. Chriemhild, and Berath-
gilt, her daughter, stayed in Thuringia. Chiudrad
was sent to Bavaria, and Thekla remained at
Ketzingen on the Main ; Lioba, beautiful as the
angels, of a ravishing eloquence, learned in the
Scriptures and the sacred canons, governed the
Abbey of Bischofsheim. These ferocious Ger-
mans, who had formerly delighted in blood and
battles, came to kneel at the feet of these gentle
teachers (ces douces mattresses). Their own
silence and humility have hidden their labours
from the eyes of the world ; but their place is at
the origin of German civilization. Providence
has placed women beside all cradles."1

St. Lioba was herself a poetess. She studied
the Old and New Testaments deeply, also the
Fathers ; ruled her convent firmly and tenderly ;
was dearly beloved by her pupils, and exercised
a free hospitality to Court and peasants, serving
her guests with her own hands. She was a
cousin of Winfried of Crediton, and came from
near his old home. Many of the letters of St.
Boniface are to women ; but with Lioba it seems

1 Les Pelits Bollandistes, quoting Ozanam. Also ex
Othloni Vita S. Bonifatii, in the Monumenta Moguntina.

334 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

as if the double tie of natural and spiritual
kindred, the double associations of early memories
and high common aims, had made the tie very
close. Brief as the glimpses given us are, she
seems to stand as a helpmate beside him, as St.
Scholastica beside her brother St. Benedict, and
St. Clara by St. Francis d'Assisi.

His power of attaching disciples to himself
was great, the true spiritual power of winning
hearts, not to a helpless clinging, but to a brave
following:; so that when he died he left not a
wailing group of forlorn orphans, but a valiant
company of teachers and Missionaries, ready to
be martyrs in their turn.

So the years went on, occupied in penetrating
further and further among the heathen tribes, in
founding monasteries to be centres of Christianity
and civilization, in organizing the new converts
to be instructed within the Christian Church.
Boniface (like Bishop Patteson) never returned to
his native England. But his heart never left it.
Many of his letters are to Englishwomen —
Abbesses of various monasteries. To one, the
royal Abbess Eadburga, when she had sent him
some manuscripts of the Scriptures, he writes,
thanking her that she had " consoled the exile

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 335

by Divine Light, for he who had to visit the dark
recesses of heathenism would fall into the jaws of
death if he had not the Word of the Lord as a
lamp to his feet." * To another — " Pray for me ;
that He who dwells on high, yet hath regard to
the lowly, may forgive me my sins, that His
Word may arm me with joyful liberty of speech,
that the Gospel of the glory of Christ may have
full access among the heathen."

To some nuns — " Pray diligently that we may
be delivered from unrighteous and cruel men ;
that the glory of Christ may be glorified. I
would not die unfruitful. I would not go home
without leaving some sons and daughters behind
me."

To the English clergy — " Seek to obtain by
your prayers that our one God and Lord Jesus
Christ, who wills that all men shall be saved, and
come to the knowledge of the truth, may convert
the hearts of these heathen Saxons to the faith.
Have confidence in them, for the people are wont
to say, ' We are of one flesh and one blood with
you.

To an English Abbot — " I need your prayers,
because the sea of Germany is so perilous to
1 Monument a Moguntina.

336 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

navigate, that I may not, while I seek to en-
lighten others, be myself covered with the dark-
ness of my own sins. Pray the beloved Champion
of us all, the only Refuge of the distressed, the
Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the
world, that our gracious Father may place burn-
ing torches in our hands, that we may enlighten
the heathen to see the Gospel of the glory of
Christ/'

And on the other hand, to King Ethelbald,
King of Mercia, he writes a letter in which, while
rendering honour to what was good in him, his
strict prohibition of theft and perjury, his pre-
serving peace, and befriending the widow and the
poor, he boldly reminds him how all was marred
by the unchastity of his own life.

" The heathen Saxons," he writes, " might be
an example to the Christian King in this.
Though a ruler of many he is making himself
a slave of sin." He entreats him to have com-
passion on the perishing multitude his evil
example is misleading to their destruction, and
nobly warns him how, if the sanctity of marriage
is dishonoured, the result is a degenerate race,
ever sinking lower and lower.

The character of his preaching seems to have

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 337

been discriminating, and practical ; no mere
rhetoric or commonplaces, but plain words pressed
home. He seems to have followed the advice
of his friend Daniel, Bishop of Winchester, to
learn accurately what the religion of the heathen
was, acknowledging all that was good in it, or in
them (for instance, their great virtue of chastity),
seeking not to irritate them by violent denuncia-
tion, but by patient and gentle questioning to let
them find out for themselves the unreasonable-
ness of their belief in comparison with the
Christian faith.

Fifteen of his sermons are preserved to us.
In one he says, " See, my beloved, what a message
we bring you ; not a message from one in whose
service you may purchase exemption, (as in the
German) but from Him to whom you are indebted
for His Blood shed for you ! "

And then he passes on to the sacredness of
marriage.

Again, in meeting the objection so often
made, that if Christianity were so necessary,
surely God would not have left the world so long
without it, he passes on from the theoretical
difficulty to the practical remedy. " Know that
he who, however late, refuses to be healed, has

338 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OP

no right to complain of the dilatoriness of the
physician. Wherefore dost thou murmur at the
Sun of Righteousness having risen so late, when
even after His rising thou still walkest in dark-
ness ? "

In another sermon, to the newly-baptized, after
speaking to them as to children of "the great
city of Rome, and the mighty chief called
Augustus, who once reigned in it, who made
peace in all the world," he goes on — " Listen, my
brethren, attentively, to what you have abjured
at baptism. You have renounced the devil, his
works, and his pomps. But what are the works
of the devil ? Pride, idolatry, luxury, homicide,
slander, lying, perjury, hatred, fornication, adultery
—in a word, whatever corrupts man. Theft,
false witness, gluttony, foul language, quarrelling,
using incantations, believing in witches, in were-
wolves, wearying and turning back from God ;
these works and those like them are the devil's
works, and the Apostle says those who do such
things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
But as we hope by God's mercy that you have
renounced all those things in deed as well as
intent, it remains for me to remind you, my
dearly loved ones, of what you have promised to

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 339

Almighty God. Now, in the first place, you
have promised to believe in Almighty God, in
Jesus Christ the Son, and in the Holy Ghost,
One God, but Three in One. And the com-
mandments you have to observe are these : You
must love God with all your heart and with all
your strength, and your neighbour as yourself.
Be patient, merciful, kind, and chaste. Teach
your children and servants to fear God. Re-
unite those who are at enmity; let judges not
take presents, which blind the eyes to justice.
Keep the Lord's Day, and go to church to pray,
not to gossip. Give alms as you are able. If
you have feasts, invite the poor, exercise hospi-
tality, visit the sick, succour widows and orphans,
give tithes to churches. Do to others as you
would like them to do to you. Fear none but
God, but fear Him always. Believe in the
coming of Christ, in the resurrection of the flesh,
in the general judgment."

The practical method and character of his
teaching is illustrated by the especial renuncia-
tions (of Woden and Freya) which are added to
the baptismal formulas. As to the other portion
of his work, the bringing into the order and unity
of the Church of those who had. chosen what

34o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

seemed to them better ways of serving God, the
history is very complicated. The story of
defeated heresies and schisms must have the
onesidedness of all history written only by the
conquerors. And Pope Zacharias himself seems
to have thought that some of the condemnations
of Boniface needed reconsidering. Of the two
opponents who most perplexed him, Adalbert
the Frank is accused of having pretended to a
direct revelation from an angel, of having accepted
almost Divine honours from his disciples, of
having taught wild and mystical things, and in
general used his gifts to gain honour for himself,
rather than to contribute to the common service.

Against Clement, Boniface's other opponent,
a teacher of Irish extraction, no accusations of
mysticism or self-exaltation are brought. The
controversy in his case seems to have turned on
questions of discipline, connected with the mar-
riage of the clergy. Also, Clement was said to
have declared that our Lord in His descent into
hell redeemed not only the Jewish patriarchs,
but heathens and others who had no means of
learning of Him in their lifetime.

Whatever may have been Boniface's wisdom
as to these minor controversies, in which the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 341

Pope and his devoted Missionary Apostle of
Germany seem to have differed, any complete
unravelling of the tangled threads is scarcely to
be hoped for in these later days. Boniface's
acts, as those of Cyprian, doubtless proceeded
from the instinct of the shepherd guiding his
scattered flock through a wilderness infested by
wild beasts — the instinct of unity, the one essential,
it might well seem, to him, being to keep the
flock together.

And, therefore, even to imprison those who
would have divided the Christian forces, as he
did imprison Adalbert, would doubtless seem to
Boniface mercy to him who would have misled,
as well as to those who were misled. His new
Christians were always first in his heart, his
unfledged new converts. For their sakes he even
wrote a stormy remonstrance to Pope Zacharias
on his encouraging superstition at Rome, by
sanctioning amulets, as things that through their
old heathen faith still had power over his
Germans.

So the fifteen years of ceaseless, fruitful work
passed away, until, in 738, Boniface once more
made a journey to Rome, to see the face of the
new Pope Zacharias, He was welcomed, as a

342 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

victorious general would have been welcomed in
the old days, who had saved the Republic.

The tidings of his 100,000 Germans won to
the Christian Church had preceded him. To
create one, who was indeed already the Apostle
of the Germans, Archbishop of Maintz, and
endue him with the pallium, was merely a
recognition of power already wielded, of triumphs
already won.

And at this very time (a.d. 738), when Boniface
was receiving at Rome the reward of his life-long
warfare in the commission to further service, his
patron and helper, Charles Martel, was achieving
at Chalons that great victory over the Saracens
which stemmed the destructive torrent that had
ruined the Christians in the East, utterly laid
waste the Church of Perpetua and Cyprian, and
swept over Spain.

From the heathen masses in the North, and
the Moslem hosts of the South and East, Chris-
tendom was saved by the different yet co-
operative work of the two heroes.

Boniface went back to Germany to carry on
the combat for fourteen years more. He founded
six new bishoprics, presided at the Councils of
Soissons and of Germany ; crowned King Pepin

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 343

le Bref, son of Charles Martel, first of the
Carlovingian Kings at Soissons, and in all things
did the work of a great metropolitan bishop.
But always in his heart glowed the old missionary
fire, always the apostolic passion for the regions
beyond ; until at seventy-five he obtained per-
mission of the Pope to lay aside his archi-
episcopal dignity, and go forth once more, in the
Benedictine habit, to the country of his first
missionary labours, the northern part of East
Friesland. He named an English monk of
Malmesbury his successor as archbishop, and
wrote a touching letter to the Frankish court
chaplain, Fulrad, committing to his care those he
left behind. " I beseech his majesty, the King
Pepin," he writes, " in the name of Christ the
Son of God, that he would design to show me
in my lifetime what reward he will hereafter
bestow on my scholars, for they are almost
entirely strangers" (chiefly, no doubt, his own
compatriots). "Some are priests appointed in
various places to the service of the Church
in the congregation ; some monks who are
supported in our cells to teach children to read ;
some old men who have laboured with me long
and sustained many. I am anxious on account

344 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

of all these, lest after my death they should be
scattered as sheep that have no shepherd, and
lest the people who dwell on the borders of the
heathen should lose their Christianity again.
The clergy on the frontier of the heathen had
a wretched life. Bread to eat they can obtain,
but clothes they cannot, if they do not get
advice and support from other quarters, as they
have from me, that they might be able to remain
in such places, in the service of the people."
King Pepin granted his request. And then once
more girding around him his Benedictine habit,
he went forth with a little missionary company
of eight, one a bishop, three deacons, and some
monks. Among them was Gregory, who had
followed him since boyhood from his grand-
mother's monastery on the Moselle. .

He took with him one book-chest containing
the Holy Gospels, St. Ambrose's De Bono
Mortis (on the Gain of Death), a book he loved
much, and also an altar-cloth and a shroud ; the
martyr's death being always a possibility for
which he was prepared.

When he arrived in Friesland all at first
seemed to go well. He baptized many new
converts, and reclaimed some who had relapsed

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 345

into heathenism since the death of his old friend
Archbishop Willibrord. On Whit Sunday he
pitched his tent in an open field near Dockum,
on the river Burda, and erected an altar. There
he awaited the arrival of the newly baptized, on
whom he was to lay his hands in confirmation.
He was waiting quietly in his tent at prayer,
when instead of the Christian converts he
expected, a swarm of fierce heathen, armed and
shouting for battle, appeared on the plain. They
rushed to the tent of Boniface. His friends and
attendants would have fought in his defence. But
he would not suffer any resistance to be made.
" We are to render good for evil," he said ; " and
as for me, this is the day that I have long
waited for. The hour of my deliverance is
come."

Then he went forth from his tent, surrounded
by his clergy, encouraging them not to fear
the brief passage before them into the celestial
kingdom and the "City of the Angels."

In an instant the fierce band of the heathen
overwhelmed and slew him, and many others
with him.

The Devonshire man who, seventy years ago,
had listened as a boy of five to the Gospel story

346 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

from the monks in his father's house near Credi-
ton, now lay, at last, in his grey hairs, slain by
those he had spent his life in serving. They
knew not what they did. When he was dead
they rushed into the tent for the booty they had
expected of gold and silver vessels and precious
vestments ; but they found only a few books, a
little wine for the Sacrament, and a few sacred
relics, and enraged at their disappointment they
turned against each other. It is said that Boniface
died with a book of the Gospels in his hand, and
that it was pierced with a sword and stained with
his blood, but that not a letter of the sacred text
was injured.

His body was wrapped in the shroud he had
laid among his books, and was taken first to
Maestricht, where Bishop Lambert had died for
purity and righteousness a century before ; and
then it was borne, finally, to his beloved Abbey
of Fulda, the English Apostle of Germany resting
among his Saxons. And there was laid, in time,
his cousin, the English Abbess, St. Lioba, after
she had faithfully carried on his work for twenty
years, dying at a great age, the friend of high and
low, of the suffering, the aged, and the little
children. Side by side the noble Devonshire

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 347

man and woman were laid to rest in the Saxon
land they had helped to win for Christ.1

Neander calls St. Boniface, Father of the
German Church and civilization.

Through Boniface no doubt was accomplished
the consolidation between the Empire and the
Church, gathering Western Christendom into
the Roman obedience, and so securing the unity
which kept at bay the barbarous tribes of the
North until these also were incorporated into the
Church, — and also drove back the two successive
floods of Mohammedan Conquest : the Saracenic
through Africa and Spain by the defeat at Treves ;

1 Sir James Stephen says {Ecclesiastical Biography, p. 481)
— " His copy of Ambrose's De Bono Mortis, covered with his
blood, was exhibited during many succeeding centuries at
Fulda as a relic. It was contemplated there by many who
regarded as superstitious and heretical some of the tenets
of Boniface. But no Christian, whatever be his own peculiar
creed, ever looked on this blood-stained memorial of him
without the profoundest emotion. For, since the Apostolic
Age, no greater benefactor of our race has come among us
than this monk of Nutcell, unless it be the Monk of Witten-
berg, who at the distance of seven centuries appeared to
reform and reconstruct the Churches founded by the holy
Benedictine. To Boniface the heart of Germany and Holland
still looks back as their spiritual progenitor, nor did any
uninspired man ever add to the permanent dominion of the
Gospel provinces of such extent and such value,"

348 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

the Turkish through Hungary by the check at
Vienna.

From Boniface's Saxony in after years came
also Luther's Deutsche Bibel fur das Deutsche
Volk, which did so much to create both the
German language and the German people.

And in ages again long after that, when the
old fervour such as we have been watching in
early days for Missions to the heathen, once more
awoke in England, from the Germany which our
great Devonshire Missionary and so many of his
kindred helped to civilize and Christianize, came
back to us, let us gratefully acknowledge, simple
and noble Missionaries, men and women, such as
Schwarz and Krapf, and the Moravians, to bear
for us and help us bear the glad tidings to India,
Africa, Greenland, and Australia.

From France to Ireland, from Ireland to Scot-
land, from Scotland to England, from Ireland and
England to France and Germany, from Germany
back again to England, and from England on to
India, Africa, and the Pacific Islands, East and
West and South and North — so the golden chain,
the electric current, completes itself.

The same paragraph, the third portion of the
Apostles' Creed, contains the words, " I believe in

IRELAND, SCOTLAXb, AND ENGLAND. 349

the Holy Ghost, the Holy Catholic Church, the
Communion of Saints." But always the Confession
of our faith about the Holy Catholic Church
is preceded and pervaded by the Confession, " I
believe in the Holy Ghost ; " and therefore always
it culminates and is crowned in the Confession of
the Communion of Saints: the Church Visible
because Luminous, Luminous by the fire of self-
sacrificing love ever burning in the hearts of her
Saints.

ST. MARGARET, QUEEN OF
SCOTLAND.

353

ST. MARGARET, QUEEN OF
SCOTLAND.

I.

Three centuries passed between the death of
Boniface and the death of Margaret, Queen and
Saint. Boniface was martyred at what is now
Dorcum, by the heathen of Holland, in 781.
Margaret died in the royal castle of Edinburgh
in 1093.

In the interval, the monasteries of Iona, and
the Holy Island of Lindisfarne, and Bede's
Jarrow, had been plundered and ruined. During
two centuries, the tide of invasion and piracy
from the North had been sweeping over Europe.

The Celtic saints had long passed away. The
controversies about Easter were in the distant,
past; but the England, Ireland, Scotland, France,
Switzerland, their fervent Missions had helped
so largely to Christianize, never lapsed again into
utter heathenism.

Again and again it must have seemed as if the

354 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

ground won might have been lost again, but it
never was.

The libraries of Bede, the schools of the great
Archbishop Theodore, had indeed vanished. But
the books of Bede, the English literature by
whose cradle the royal Abbess Hilda had watched,
the poems the cowherd Caedmon, by her
encouragement, had sung, the English tongue
of Bede and Caedmon remained.

The century after Boniface had been a century
of fighting for life, for England and for the
Christianity of England. But another king,
saintly as the Northumbrian Oswald, though not
in any calendar, had beaten back the Dane, and
begun finally to make England one.

In picturing him, the historian pictures a
noble ideal of the English character. "Alfred
was the noblest, the most complete embodiment
of all that is great, all that is lovable in the
English character. He combined as no other
man has ever combined, its practical energy, its
patient and enduring force, its profound sense of
duty, the reserve and control that steadies in
it a wide outlook and a restless daring, its
temperance and fairness, its frank geniality, its
sensitiveness to affection, its poetic tenderness,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 355

its deep and passionate religion. Religion was
indeed the groundwork of Alfred's character.
His temper was instinct with piety. Everywhere
through his writings that remain to us, the name
of God, the thought of God, stirs him to outbursts
of ecstatic adoration. But he was no mere Saint "
(as surely no great Saint ever was). " He felt
none of that scorn of the world about him which
drove the noble souls of his day to monastery or
hermitage. Vexed as he was by sickness and
constant pain, his temper took no touch of
asceticism. His rare geniality, a peculiar elasticity
and mobility of nature, gave colour and charm to
his life." 1

Yet the true asceticism was there, the enduring
hardness, the "fighting not as one that beateth
the air," the " bringing the body into subjection."
His life was as much by rule, hour by hour,
as Columba's or Columban's, not an hour idle.
" So long as I have lived," he said when dying,
" I have striven to live worthily."

Alfred, "Truth-teller" and king: and founder
also of monasteries at Winchester and in Athelney.

When looking back on the work of the men
before him, Aidan and Bede and Theodore,
1 Green's History of the English People, i. 75.

356 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

thinking probably how Alcuin came to learn at
the English school of Latin and Greek and all
known learning at York, he mourned to see how
"formerly strangers came hither to learn, and
now we have to go to seek instruction in foreign
lands."

But most of all, as English king, he grieved to
think how what little learning lingered was wither-
ing into the mere accomplishment of the learned
or the privilege of the priesthood.

"When I began to reign," he said, "I cannot
remember one priest south of the Thames who
could render the service-book into English."

It was the people he cared for ; and into the
common tongue he translated Bede, as Bede
had translated the Gospel of St. John, finishing
the last verse as he was dying.

Alfred turned the tide for us. But there were
many ebbs and flows afterwards. In the century
which followed, the struggle of the shaping
into one of England still went on. In that
century another great statesman and churchman
arose. He was a successor indeed of Wilfrid
rather than of Aidan and Cuthbert, and the
future saints of Ireland and Iona. Yet it is
interesting to remember that at Glastonbury he

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 357

touched the scholarly and artistic saints of
Ireland, studying with passionate earnestness the
books they left there, and carrying about with
him through life the harp he learned there to
use. Dunstan helped to unite the English
kingdoms into one, for the grandson of Alfred.
And Canute, who came to us a pirate, remained
to rule us as a king and a Christian, and also to
unite the land.

But yet another flood was to burst over the
English land, also to make its ruins, and to leave
its imperishable deposits of new soil. And to the
people who lived through it, that time may well
have seemed the darkest of all.

Again, it was a Norseman who made the
Conquest, but this time Norseman polished
linguistically into Norman, which to Saxon,
English, men must have seemed most hopeless
of all. For the first time since the Britons
were driven into the mountains, it must have
seemed to the people as if the English mother
tongue was to be banished, left to be the mere
dialect of peasants and serfs.

No more translating books into that common
tongue by the King. The new Norman King-
had other things to do. The common tongue

358 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

was to him indeed, — and might it not become
to all ? — in the lowest sense, the " vulgar " tongue.
The Norman language in the Castle on the hill-
top. The Norman Prelate on the episcopal throne,
the Norman King on Alfred and Edward the
Confessor's throne; what but the absolutism of
foreign domination and slavery could come of
it ? What did come of it, we know, was Eng-
land : the English nobles welded into the great
English middle class — free-spoken and cultured
— creating the material for the English Parliament,
the middle-class of squire and merchant and clerk
and yeoman allied to the peasantry and to the
"common people" by one blood and language ;
so that freedom " broadened down " from class
to class, from age to age.

But no one in those dreadful days of the
Norman Conquest could foresee that ; any more
than Col man could foresee the Danes, or Alfred
and Columban Mohammed and Charles Martel
and Tours. From South to North the English
people were being massacred and enslaved, the
English land was turned into forest and wilder-
ness ; — the English towns were being sacked and
burnt by William the Conqueror, from the New
Forest to desolated Yorkshire. The misery was

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 359

scarcely to be paralleled in those times of so
many successive waves of destruction. Iona
and Lindisfarne had long vanished : Peter-
borough, Crowland, and Ely had long been
plundered and burned by the Norsemen from
Denmark.

But this Norseman arrived not as a pirate who
ravaged, burnt, and went away ; but as a Con-
queror, who ruined, and massacred, and remained,
to see that the crushed enemy did not rise again.
For half a century the sixty miles he ravaged
north of York remained a wilderness ; and to make
the ruin seem, if possible, more entirely unremedi-
able, from Scotland, from the land of Aidan,
in the North, came another raid of the Scottish
king, Malcolm Can more, " killing the old like
swine for a banquet," driving the young, especially
the women and children, northwards, whether
they died of fatigue by the way or not (like the
slaves along the path of death to the African
coast), till there was scarcely a village or farm in
Scotland which did not hold in bondage one of
those fair English St. Gregory had so admired
and laboured to save.

It was out of such wreck and storm as this
our England grew. And it was in the midst

360 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.

of such wreck and storm that Margaret, sister
of Edgar Atheling, of Alfred's race, grew to
be a Saint. It is like the story of Ruth, the
flower of a sweet life, of a holy, loving home,
blossoming amidst the barbaric struggles of the
Book of Judges. And it happens that this story
of hers is given as scarcely any other life in those
far-off times, by her friend and confessor Turgot
(or Theodoric as the name is differently rendered),
the woman herself, no mere shadowy ideal of
what she might have been, but naturally, simply,
fully what she ivas: mother, queen, and saint,
by being all these in their truest meaning.

36i

II.

PROPYLiEUM AD VITAM.

T his is the name given in the Acta Sanctorum
by the Bollandists to the story of St. Margaret's
ancestors, as a preface to her own life. It is taken,
they say, u from Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx, and
others " : Propylaeum : portico and entrance to a
temple.

" Edgar, being translated to the heavenly
kingdom, was succeeded by Edward, to whom
succeeded his brother Ethelred, who having sent
ambassadors to Normandy, asked and received
the hand of Emma, the daughter of Richard
Duke of Normandy. By her he had two sons,
Edward and Alfred." He had already another
son by his previous marriage with the daughter
of Earl Toreth, Edmund called Ironside, who
succeeded him on the throne.

During Edmund's reign, "Cnuth the Dane "
(Canute) invaded England, and the wars between
Canute and Edmund were ended by a treaty

362 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

dividing the kingdom between them. Edmund
died two months after this treaty was made.
Canute then claimed possession of the whole,
marrying Emma the widow of Ethelred, Edmund's
father. Edward, afterwards called the Confessor,
Edmund's brother, and Ethelred's son, lived after
this in exile in Normandy.

There were two younger children of Ethelred by
the Norman Queen Emma, " Canute, fearing, him-
self, to injure them, sent to the King of Sweden,
to be put out of the way (interjiciendos). But the
Swedish king took pity on the helpless little
ones, and sent them on to Stephen the Saint,
and King of Hungary. St. Stephen received
them graciously, more graciously brought them
up, and most graciously of all adopted them.
He married Edward, the son who lived, to his
niece Agatha, of the Saxon Imperial Family of
Germany.''' The children of this marriage were
three, Edgar the Atheling, Christina who became
an Abbess, and St. Margaret. Thus St. Margaret's
father was brought up at the Court and in the
home of St. Stephen, who brought Hungary
from Paganism to Christianity, and into close
connection with the See of Rome, from which
he received the famous Hungarian Crown ; pro-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 363

bably the most religious and cultivated Court then
in Europe.

After the death of Canute and his sons, and
the accession of Edward the Confessor, at King
Edward's request, the Emperor of Germany
(King Stephen having died) sent the English
Edward with his wife Agatha, and his three
children, " with great glory and riches, and all
that a king could wish," to England. There,
these last scions of King Alfred's line were
received with enthusiasm by the English people.
But from some cause unexplained — court intrigue
or what else — they never saw Edward the Con-
fessor. In a few days after their landing in
England, Edward the father died, and "the joy
of the English was turned into mourning, and
their laughter into tears." Soon, the Confessor
also died. Then followed the claim on the
English throne by William Duke of Normandy;
the young Atheling Edgar with his sisters and
their German mother being thus left helpless and
forlorn. They took ship to return to Hungary,
the land of their birth. But a tempest arose,
and drove the ship towards Scotland, where, after
being much tossed about by the waves, they
landed at length in the Frith of Forth.

564 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Meantime, Malcolm Caenmore, King of the
Scots, had been on an expedition into the North
of England, laying Cumberland waste, and Teviot-
dale and St. Cuthbert's country. From this he
had only just returned. At his palace at Dun-
fermline, on the north of the Frith of Forth, he
heard of the arrival of the royal strangers, and
hastened to greet them in their ship, remembering
the kindness he had himself received from Edward
the Confessor during his own years of exile in
England. Edgar the Atheling, when he heard
Malcolm had come, went with his mother and
sisters to meet him, in as great state and royal
splendour as they could. In a few days, capti-
vated by the grace, the noble manner, and the
goodness of Margaret, Malcolm sought her from
her mother in marriage. Agatha did not refuse,
"thinking there were not easily to be found a
husband more equal to her daughter." And so
the young princess and the soldierly, chivalrous
King, in the prime of his years, were married in
the week after Easter. And, soon after, the fail-
English bride Margaret was crowned Queen of
the Scots.

" William the Norman, hearing of these things,
and knowing how many were still in England

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND, tf

J" 3

loyal in heart to the Atheling, proscribed all
Edgar's friends, so that a great number of
Englishmen of high degree fled to Malcolm,1 and
brought many precious ornaments and vessels
to Edgar, carefully concealed, gold and silver,
and relics and reliquaries, and among the rest
the Black Cross, so dear to Margaret to her
dying hour, and to enshrine which her son David
built in Lothian the church of the Holy Rood.

What that marriage meant for Scotland may
be seen in the pages of her friend and confessor,
where the appreciation of the chivalrous, half-
protective, half-adoring tenderness of the King,
his playful acquiescence in her " rapine " from his
alms-bag, the humour and naturalness and tender-
heartedness of the King and the Queen, and also
of the priest, who is the biographer, sparkle
out so delightfully through all the elaborate
antitheses and religious laudations and courtly
phrases.

The children of Margaret did indeed tread in
her steps. Probably the good monk, Turgot or
Theodore, was able to fulfil effectually his last
promise to her to be a faithful friend to them.

1 From these refugees some of the most ancient historic
families in Scotland trace their descent.

366 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Three of the sons reigned ; the youngest,
David, seems to have been like her in devotion
and loving humility. His benefactions to the
Church, as was said, made him "a sair king for
the croun."

When himself dying, he insisted on being taken
from his bed to do honour to the Blessed Sacra-
ment, himself responding with fervent devotion
from feeble trembling lips. " In great devotion
and tranquillity he lived that day and passed the
night, and in the morning of the Sunday pre-
ceding Ascension Day, just as the dawning sun
scattered the darkness of night, he himself passed
from the darkness of the body into the true joys
of the light, so tranquilly, that he seemed, like
his mother, not dead but asleep, his hands clasped
to the last in devotion : " St. David the King, son
of St. Margaret the Queen.

There is a touching little story about King
David, which lets in some light on the days
when he was comparatively a thoughtless boy ;
especially interesting, because it gives us a glimpse
into the life of his sister Matilda, for whom their
mother's life was written, the Queen of Henry the
First of England.

The narrator of the incident says he received

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGL. AND. 367

it "from the mouth of the never-to-be-forgotten
King David," who became such a friend to the poor.

"When," said David, "I was a youth, serving
in the royal court in England, one night when
I was doing I know not what with my com-
panions, I was called to the chamber of the
Queen (his sister Mathilda). And behold the
house was full of lepers, and the Queen standing
in the midst. Her royal robes laid aside, she
was clothed in linen, and taking a bason of water,
she began to wash their feet and to wipe them,
and then to press them with both her hands and
devoutly to kiss them. I said to her, ' What
dost thou, O lady mine ? Surely if the King knew
this, never would he kiss thy lips polluted by the
feet of lepers.'

" Then she, smiling gently, said, 6 Who does
not know that the feet of the King eternal are to
be preferred to the lips of a mortal king ? For
this reason, dearest brother, I called thee, that by
my example thou shouldst learn to do likewise.
Take the bason, and do what you see me do.'
At that word I was violently alarmed, and I
exclaimed that by no means would I suffer such
a thing ; for I did not indeed know her Lord,
nor was His Spirit revealed to me. She going

EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

on with what she had begun, I, (mea culpa!)
laughing, returned to my companions."

Of this King David, in his later years, we are
told by one who knew him, how full of gracious-
ness and kindness he was, rejoicing with those
who rejoiced, weeping with those who wept. " I
have seen him with my eyes, equipped for
hunting, with his foot in the stirrup, at the voice
of a poor man withdraw his foot, re-enter the
palace, and giving up his purpose, patiently and
kindly listen to the cause for which he was
appealed to. It was his custom also to sit at the
gate of his palace, to hear carefully the causes
of poor and aged people who came from various
regions, and endeavour with much labour to
satisfy them. For often they would contest
the matter with him, and he with them; for
he would not, contrary to justice, accept the
person of the poor, and they would not always
accept the reasons he gave. In short, if it
happened that any priest, or soldier, or monk,
rich or poor, citizen or stranger, had speech with
him, so to the purpose and so humbly would he
discuss their business and duties with all, that
each thought himself his especial care, and so all
went away pleased and edified."

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 369

This story of her son may certainly be taken as
belonging to the Propylaeum of St. Margaret's
life as well as that of her forefathers : a porch
and entrance to what was indeed a Temple.

Her life itself seems best rendered in the
words of her friend and biographer, taking us
naturally and altogether, without explanation or
comment, into the atmosphere she breathed, and
speaking in the language she used.

A A

370

III.

THE LIFE1 OF ST. MARGARET, QUEEN
OF SCOTLAND.

THE AUTHOR BEING THEODORIC, A MONK OF DURHAM, CON-
FESSOR OF THE SAINT HERSELF, TO HER DAUGHTER
MATHILDA, QUEEN OF ENGLAND (WIFE OF KING HENRY I.).

PROLOGUE.

To the excellently honourable and honourably
excellent Mathilda, Queen of the English, Tlieo-
doric, a servant of the servants of St. Cuthbert ;
in this present life the good of peace and health ;
and in the future the supreme good of all good.

i. The life, the daily living (conuersatio) of
your mother of venerable memory, that life so
well-pleasing to God, which you have heard
proclaimed by the concordant praise of many,
you by requesting have commanded, and in com-
manding have requested, that I should offer to
you in writing.

1 Translated from the Latin of Theodoric in the Acta
Sanctorum.

EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 371

You have indeed said that I am most to be
trusted in this, because you have heard that I
was in great part acquainted with her secrets,
thanks to her great intimacy with me.

These commands and these wishes I willingly
embrace ; embracing, I greatly venerate ; venerat-
ing, I congratulate you, who being by the King
of the Angels made Queen of the Angles, desire
not only to hear the life of your Queen Mother,
who was always panting for the kingdom of the
Angels, but to be able to gaze into it continually,
expressed in writing, so that having known but
little the face of your mother, you might yet
have full knowledge of her virtues.

And indeed my will is well inclined to accom-
plish this; but I confess capacity is lacking; the
material is greater than my power of speaking or
writing.

2. Thus I suffer in two ways, so that I am
drawn hither and thither on account of the great-
ness of the thing. I fear to obey ; yet on account
of the authority of her who commands, and my
own memory of what is to be said, I dare not
refuse. But although I am not worthy to unfold
so great a subject, yet as much as I can I am
bound to tell ; for this my own delight in it,

372 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

and your command exact. For the grace of
the Holy Spirit, which gave to her such efficacy
of virtues, to me also, I hope, will minister help
in narrating them ; and again it is written, " Open
thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." Neither can
one fail in word who believes in the word : " In
the beginning ivas the Word, and the Word was
God."

And firstly therefore I wish you, and others
through you, to know, that if I were to try to
proclaim all that I know of her, I might seem to
be speaking with adulation in praise of your
mother on account of her royal dignity. But
far be it from me, a grey-haired man, to mar the
virtues of such a woman by falsehood ; for in
setting this forth, God being my Witness and
Judge, I propose to add nothing to that which
is; on the contrary, I must suppress many things
in silence, lest they should seem incredible ; lest
(as the Orator says) I should seem to be adorn-
ing the crow with the colour of the swan.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGL. AND. 373

CHAPTER I.

THE NOBILITY OF HER RACE ; HER ROYAL AND MATRONLY
VIRTUES.

3. We read that many have drawn their name
from the quality of their mind ; so that in them,
what they were called corresponded to the grace
they had received. So Peter from the Rock
(Petra) by Christ, on account of the firmness of
his faith ; so John (which is " the grace of God "),
because of his contemplation of the Divinity,
and participation in the Divine love ; and the
sons of Zebedee are called Boanerges, i. e. sons
of thunder, on account of the thunder of their
Evangelical preaching. This also is found in
this virtuous woman ; for the grace of her name
was surpassed by the beauty of her soul. Mar-
garet she was called, and she in the sight of God
in faith and deed was indeed a precious Mar-
gareta and Pearl. And so your Pearl and
Margareta, and mine and ours, and above all
Christ's (and because Christ's, all the more ours),
has left us now, and is taken up to God. This
pearl, I say, has been taken up from the dung-
hill of this world, and shines now among the
jewels of the Eternal King. Which indeed no

374 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

one will doubt when he shall in a little while have
heard her life, and the close of her life. Whose
converse with me, seasoned indeed with salt,
when I recall, when I consider her tears wrung
from the compunction of her heart ; when I think
of the soberness and composedness of her ways ;
when I remember her graciousness and wisdom,
mourning, I rejoice; and rejoicing, I mourn. I
rejoice, because she has gone to God for whom
she longed ; I mourn, because I am not rejoicing
with her in the heavenly places. For her, I say,
I rejoice, because what she believed, she now
sees, " the goodness of the Lord in the land of
the living"; for myself I mourn, because in this
land of the dead, while I suffer the miseries of
mortal life, I am daily constrained to say, "O
wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me
from the body of this death ? "

4. Since then I have to speak of that nobility
of mind which was hers in Christ, something
must first be told of the nobility with which
she shone according to this world. She had
for her grandfather one who, in that he fought
strenuously and invincibly against his enemies,
obtained the distinguished title of Ironside. His
brother, her uncle, on the father's not on the

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 375

mother's side, was the most gentle and pious
Eadward, who showed himself the father of his
country — another Solomon — (which is, being in-
terpreted, Pacific) ; rather by peace than by arms
he protected the kingdom. For he bore a mind
victorious over anger, despising avarice, destitute
of pride. Neither is this to be wondered at ;
since from his ancestors he received as by
hereditary right not only the glory of high
place, but of an honourable life. He was de-
scended from Eadgar, King of the English, and
Richard Count of the Normans, both not only
most noble but most religious men. Of these
two, Eadgar, of what weight he was in the world,
and of what value in Christ may be briefly stated.
King of righteousness and lover of justice, it was
pretokened he was to be. For at his birth the
blessed Dunstan heard the holy angels rejoicing
in heaven, and singing with great joy — " Peace
and gladness to the Church of the English as
long as this boy shall hold the kingdom, and
Dunstan with him shall tread the way of mortal
life."

5. Richard also, the father of Eadward's
mother Emma, shone worthy of such a grand-
son, a man earnest in all things, and to be

176 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

praised with all praise. For none of his ancestors
were ever more prosperous in the secular dignity,
or more fervent in the love of religion. Placed
in possession of great riches, he was poor in
spirit, as another David ; appointed Lord of the
people, he was the lowliest servant of the servants
of Christ. Among other things which he left as
memorials of his religion, this devoted worshipper
of Christ built the noble monastery of Fecamp ;
in which he, a secular in dress, but a monk in
act, used often to converse with the monks, and
silently to place their food and drink before
them, serving them at meals; that, accord-
ing to the Scriptures, being greatest, he might
humble himself to be the least. Whose works
of magnificence and virtue, if any one wishes
to know more fully, let him read the Gesta
Normannorum, which contains his Acts. From
ancestors of such distinction and excellence
Eadward their grandson nowise degenerated. As
said before, he was the son of the brother of
Eadward the King, of whose son Margaret was
the daughter, by the brightness of her merits
adorning still more this bright row of her
ancestors.

6. Whilst still in the first bloom of her years,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 377

she began to lead a sober and earnest life, to
love God above all things, to occupy herself
with the study of Divine Readings, and with
delight to exercise her mind on them. There
was inborn in her, an acute subtlety of intelli-
gence to understand, much tenacity of memory
to retain, and a gracious facility of words to
express wrhat she knew.

Whilst therefore she meditated day and night
in the law of the Lord, sitting like another Mary
at the feet of the Lord, and delighting to hear
His words, — by the will of her kindred rather
than by her own, yet truly by the appointment
of God, she was united in marriage to Malcolm,
the most potent King of Scotland, son* of King
Duncan.1 But although she was compelled to

1 " It was a good day indeed for Malcolm and for Scotland
when Margaret was persuaded or constrained to exchange
the easy self-dedication of the cloister for the harder task
of doing her duty in that state of life to which it pleased
God to call her. Margaret became the mirror of wives,
mothers, and Queens, and none ever more worthily earned
the honours of Saintship. Her gentle influence reformed
whatever needed to be reformed in her husband, and none
laboured more diligently for the advance of all temporal
and spiritual enlightenment in her adopted country. The
wife of Malcolm played a part not wholly unlike the part
played by the earlier wives of ^Ethelberht and Eadwine.
There was indeed no need for Margaret to bring a new

378 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

have to do with the things of the world, in her
heart she despised them ; she delighted more
in a good work than in the possession of riches.
With these things temporal she prepared for
herself eternal rewards ; since she set her heart
where her treasure was — in heaven, And because
she sought first the kingdom of God and His
righteousness, by the large grace of the Omni-
potent, honours and riches were added unto
her. She did all things which became a wise
Queen ; by her counsel the rights of the kingdom
were ordered ; by her industry the Divine religion
spread, and the people were glad in the prosperity
of the land. Nothing firmer than her faith, more
constant than her countenance, more tolerant
than her patience, more just than her judgment,
more pleasant than her converse.

7. When therefore she had attained the

religion into Scotland, but she gave a new life to the religion
which she found existing there.

"It was through Margaret that the old kingly blood of
England passed into the veins of the descendants of the
Conqueror ; it was in her daughter, the heiress of her virtues,
that ' the green tree began to return to its place.' The life
of Margaret by Turgot (or Theodoric) is one of the most
interesting pieces that we have as a personal and ecclesiastical
biography." — Freeman, Norinci7i Conquest, iv. 510.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 379

summit of dignity, she soon erected in the place
where her nuptials were celebrated (Dunfermline)
an eternal monument of her name and her piety.
She built there a church in honour of the
Holy Trinity, with a threefold intention ; for
the redemption of the soul of the King and of
her own, and to obtain for their children and
descendants prosperity in this life and in the life
to come. Which church she decorated with
various kinds of ornaments ; amongst which are
known to have been not a few vessels of pure
and solid gold for the sacred ministry of the
altar ; which I know the more surely, because
by the command of the Queen 1 had the charge
of them all for a long time. The Cross also,
of incomparable value, having the Image of the
Saviour, which she had also covered with purest
gold and silver mingled with precious gems,
showing to those who behold it to-day the
devotion of her faith.

In other churches also she left signs of her
sacred devotion and faith, as witnesseth the
Church of St. iVndrews, where to this day can be
seen that most beautiful image of the Crucified,
which she herself had there lifted up. Of these
things which belong to the worship of the

380 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

Divine service her chamber was never empty;
it seemed, if I may say so, to be a workshop
of Divine art. There were always to be seen
copes for the choir, stoles, palls for the altar,
and other sacerdotal vestments and ornaments
of the church. Some were being prepared by
the hands of the artificers ; some, already finished,
were had in admiration.

8. These works were given to women of noble
birth and honourable life, such as were thought
worthy of being in the household of the Queen.
No man was admitted, except such as she
permitted, to enter with herself when she went
to pay them a visit. No light familiarity, no
petulant levity was ever allowed. In the Queen
there was such strictness blended with her sweet-
ness, such pleasantness with her severity, that all
in her service, men and women, loved while they
feared her, and feared while they loved. So that
in her presence not only could nothing blam-
able be done, but no one would have dared
to use a low word. Repressing all faults in
herself, there was great gravity in her gladness,
and dignity in her anger; never abandoned to
wild laughter, nor excited to anything like rage.
For, whilst indeed she would be indignant with

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 381

the faults of others, and her own, her anger
was always the friend of justice, according to the
precept of the Psalmist — Be ye angry and sin
not. All her life, composed by supreme moder-
ation of wisdom, was in itself a mould of virtues.
Her speech was full of the salt of wisdom, her
silence of good thoughts. So closely did the
gentleness and repose of her manners fit her,
one could only think they were born with her.
To say much in a few words, in all that she
said, in all that she did, she showed that the
thoughts of her heart were heavenly.

9. Not less than for herself was her care for
her children ; that indeed they might be brought
up with all diligence, and taught ; and, above all,
trained in virtuous ways. And as she knew it
was written, " Who spares the rod, spoils the
child," she insisted on their attendants correcting
their infant naughtinesses with severe words, and
if necessary with whippings ; through which
earnest care of their mother for the little ones, their
manners were often far better than those of older
people ; and they were always kind and peaceful
with each other, and the younger ready to yield to
the older. So that when they accompanied their
parents to Mass, and, after their parents, went (up

382 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

to the chancel) with their offerings, the younger
never thought of going before the elder, but all
kept to the order of their ages. And often she
would call them to her, and teach them of Christ
and the things of Christ, as far as their age would
permit, and diligently she sought to admonish
them to honour Him. " Fear the Lord, my
children," she would say, "for there is no want to
those that fear Him ; and if you love Him, my
dear hearts, He will give you prosperity in this
life, and eternal joy with all His Saints." These
were the desires of your mother, this her teaching,
these her prayers night and day for her offspring,
with many tears, that they might know their
Creator in the faith which worketh by love, and
knowing might worship Him, and worshipping
might love Him in all and above all, and loving
Him might attain to the glory of the Heavenly
Kingdom.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 3S3

CHAPTER II.

THE CARE OF MARGARET FOR THE HONOUR OF THE KINGDOM,
AND FOR ECCLESIASTICAL DISCIPLINE, THAT ABUSES
SHOULD L'E CORRECTED.

10. Nor is it to be wondered at that the Queen
should order herself and hers with wise rule,
who herself was always ruled by the most wise
teaching of the Sacred Scriptures.

For, what I used to admire greatly in her, was
how, amidst the distractions of legal decisions,
amidst the multitudinous cares of the kingdom,
with a wonderful eagerness she gave herself to
the Sacred Reading, conferring with the most
learned and able men, and often asking them
acute questions. But among them all, as there
was none with a profounder intellect than her
own, so no one could ever speak more clearly.
Thus it often happened that those teachers went
away much wiser than they came. Indeed her
avidity for the Sacred Volumes was not small,
and many a time her kindliness and gracious
intimacy compelled me to weary myself in
procuring them for her. For in these things
it was not only her own good, but the good of
others that she sought, and before all the good

384 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

of the King himself; and, God working with
her, she made him also most earnest in justice,
mercy, almsgiving, and all other good works.
From her he learnt also to keep vigils and prayers
at night; by her exhortation and example he
learned to pray to God with true groanings of
the heart and abundance of tears. I wondered,
I confess, at this great miracle of God's mercy,
when I saw such a purpose of prayer in the
King, such compunction in the heart of a man
living in the world, whenever he prayed.

n. This Queen of his — of a life so to be vener-
ated, in whose heart he could see that Christ did
indeed dwell — he truly dreaded to grieve ; but on
the contrary, he set himself in all things to fulfil
her wishes and her wise counsels.

The things she rejected, he rejected also ;
and the things she loved, he loved for the love
of her. So, the very books from which she was
accustomed to pray or to read, he, being ignorant
of letters, used to turn over with his hands, and
gaze into ; and when he heard from her that any
one was especially dear to her, he also would hold
it dearer than others, and kiss it, and often fold
it in his hands. Sometimes he would call a
worker in gold, and order him to adorn that

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 3S5

manuscript with gold and gems ; and thus
elaborately ornamented, the King himself would
bring it back to the Queen as a token of his
devotion to her. Whilst she herself, meanwhile,
this most noble gem of royal race, made far
more magnificent the magnificence of the King's
glory ; and herself added glory and beauty to all
the nobles of the kingdom and their households.
For she caused that merchants coming from
diverse regions by sea and land, brought many
and costly kinds of goods for sale which hitherto
had been unknown in that country, among
which were garments of diverse colours and
various ornaments of dress, which, the Queen
constraining them, the natives bought, so that at
her request clothes of various fashions began to
be worn, and the grace and beauty of them made
the wearers look like new men. She also
instituted more stately service and attendance
for the King, so that wherever he went, walking
or on horseback, a large company with great
pomp accompanied him ; and this also with so
much discipline, that wherever they came, none
of them were allowed to take anything by force
from any one, nor were any of them suffered in
any way to oppress or injure the country people

BB

386 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

or the poor. Also the decorations of the royal
palaces were multiplied, and the whole house not
only was bright with the many coloured dresses
of the inmates, but also was resplendent with
silver and gold. For the vessels on which the
food and drink were served at table to the King
and the nobles were gold and silver, or at least
plated with silver and gold.

12. And this indeed she did, not because she
delighted in worldly honour, but because she set
her mind to carry out all that her royal state
required of her. For whilst she moved about
clothed as became a Queen with costly raiment,
like another Esther, in her mind she trampled
over all these pomps, and never considered herself,
underneath the gems and gold, as anything but
dust and ashes. In a word, in all this height of
dignity, it was always her greatest care to pre-
serve humility. And much the more easily did
she repress any inflation of pride from worldly
glory, because the transitory condition of this
fragile life never was absent from her mind. For
she ever was mindful of the sentence in which the
unstable state of human life is described. Thus,
" Man that is born of a woman is of few days,
and full of many miseries : he cometh up like a

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 387

flower and is cut down, and fleeth like a shadow,
and never continueth long in one stay." She was
ever turning over in her mind what the Apostle
James saith, " What is our life ? It is even a
vapour, which appeareth for a little season, and
then vanisheth away." And because, as the
Scripture says, " Blessed is the man who feareth
a! way," so much the more easily did this vener-
able Queen avoid sin, inasmuch as with fear and
trembling she ever kept before the eyes of her
mind the severe day of judgment. Wherefore
she often entreated me, that if I saw anything to
be reproved in her, in word or deed, 1 would not
hesitate to point it out to her privately. Which
if I did it more seldom or less severely than she
wished, she would earnestly press on me, and
would argue that I was lukewarm or negligent :
"Let the righteous reprove me friendly, and smite
me ; the ointments of the wicked shall not
anoint my head ; better are the wounds of a
friend than the kisses of a flattering enemy." By
this she meant, that blame of herself, which another
might resist as a shame, she craved for, to perfect
her in virtue.

13. Thus this religious Queen, worthy of her
God, whilst with mind and words and deeds she

3S8 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

pressed forward to the heavenly country, was also
ever inviting others to go on with her in that
immaculate life, that with her they might together
reach the true beatitude. When she saw a bad
man, she admonished him that he might become
good ; a good man, that he might become better ;
the better that he should strive to be best. Truly
Apostolic in her faith, the zeal of the House of
God, which is the Church, devoured her ; so that
whatever unlawful things sprang up there she
sought to root out. When then she saw that
many things were done among that people
against the rule of the rieht faith and the
holy custom of the Universal Church, she
instituted frequent Councils to bring back the
erring to the way of truth. Of which Councils
the principal was one in which she alone, with a
few of her friends, contended against the perverse
assertors of custom for three clays, with the
sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
You might have thought you saw a second
Helena ; for as that Empress of old convinced the
Jews by sentences from the Scriptures, similarly
now this Queen convinced those who were in
error. But in this conflict the King assisted as
Assessor and Principal, whatever she commanded

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 389

in this cause, most ready to say or do. For as
he understood the language of the English as
well as his own, he was able to interpret between
each party.

14. Therefore the Queen, after saying by way
of introduction, that those who serve God in one
Faith in the Catholic Church, must not diverge
from that Church into new and foreign institu-
tions, then first set forth that those did not keep
the Lenten fast lawfully, who instead of following
the custom of the Holy Church of beginning the
fast on Ash Wednesday, begin it on the Monday
of the following week. The objectors replied :
" We keep the fast by the authority of the Gospel,
which says that Christ fasted six weeks." But
she said : " Far do you depart in this from the
Gospel; for it says the Lord fasted forty days,
which it is clear you do not. For if you sub-
tract six Sundays through six weeks from the
fast, it is obvious that only thirty-six days are left
for the fast. You do not then according to the
authority of the Gospel observe forty days, but
thirty-six. It remains therefore that if you wish
by the example of the Lord to fast forty days, you
must begin four days before Quadragesima ; but,
on the contrary, in opposition to the authority

39o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

of the Lord Himself, and of the whole Holy
Church, you alone reject the tradition." There-
fore they, being convinced by the clear reason of
the truth, thenceforward began the fast at the
same time with the rest of the Church.

15. The Queen then proposed another thing:
she desired that they should show for what
reason they neglected to receive the Sacrament
of the Body and Blood of Christ on Easter Day,
according to the custom of the Holy Apostolic
Church. They replied, "The Apostle speaking
of these things says, 'Whosoever eateth and
drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judg-
ment to himself.' Now, since we acknowledge
ourselves to be sinners, we dread to approach that
mystery." 1 To whom the Queen said, "What
then? Are all who are sinners not to taste
the holy mystery? Then no one could receive
it, for none is without the stain of sin, not even
the child of one day's life upon the earth. If
then no one may partake, why does the Gospel
cry through the lips of the Lord Himself,

1 It is interesting to observe in this the persistency of the
national characteristics. Those who are familiar with the
Highlands of Scotland, will see in the difficulties St. Margaret
sought to meet the difficulties of many a Highland parish
to-day.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 391

6 Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and
drink His blood, ye have no life in you'? But
clearly it is necessary, that according to the
interpretation of the Fathers ye should otherwise
understand that sentence of the Apostle. He
does not deem that all who are sinners take
unworthily the Sacraments of Salvation. For
when he says, ' he eateth and drinketh judgment
to himself,' he adds, ' not discerning the body of
the Lord ' (that is, not separating it in faith from
bodily food),4 he eateth and drinketh judgment to
himself.' But he who without confession and
penitence, with the pollutions of his iniquities
upon him, should presume to approach the sacred
mysteries, he indeed, I say, does eat and drink
judgment to himself. But we who having many
days before made confession of our sins, are
chastened with penance, are lowered by fasting,
are washed from the stain of our sins through alms-
giving and tears, — on the Day of the Resurrection
of the Lord, approaching His table in the Catholic
faith, receive the flesh and blood of the spotless
Lamb, Jesus Christ, not to the judgment, but
the remission, of our sins, and to the salutary
preparation for the participation in eternal beati-
tude." These things being perceived by them,

392 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

they were able to answer nothing, and thenceforth,
with perception of the saving mystery, they
observed the acknowledged institutions of the
Church.

1 6. Besides this, in certain places of the Scots,
there were some who, contrary to the custom of
the whole Church, were wont to celebrate Masses
with I know not what barbarous rites, which the
Queen, burning with the zeal of God, sought so
to destroy and annihilate, that none among all
the nation of the Scots should thenceforth pre-
sume to do such a thing. There were also some
who were wont, neglecting the reverence due to
the day of the Lord, to insist on earthly labours
being gone on with on those days as on other
days ; which she showed them was not lawful either
by reason or authority. " For," said she, " let us
hold the Lord's Day in reverence, because of the
Resurrection of the Lord, which happened on that
day ; and on that day on which we know we
were redeemed from the bondage of the devil, let
us do no servile work." For this also the blessed
Pope Gregory affirms, saying, " on the Lord's Day
we are to cease from work, and are to be earnest
in prayers ; that if anything has been neglected
through the six days, on the day of the Resur-

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 393

rection of the Lord it may be expiated." Also
the same Father Gregory having severely reproved
one who had done earthly work on the Lord's
Day, she decreed that those who had thus acted
should be excommunicated for two months. Not
being able to resist these reasons of the wise
Queen, after this they kept the reverence due to
the Lord's days at her command, so that no one
dared on those days carry any burden, or compel
another to do so. She showed also how execrable
was the marriage of a man with his step-mother,
or with the wife of his defunct brother, which had
before been practised, and how those things were
to be avoided by the faithful more than death
itself. Many other things also, contrary to the
rule of faith and the ecclesiastical institutions, she
caused to be condemned in that Council, and to
be thrust out of the kingdom. For all those
things which she proposed, she so corroborated
by the testimony of the Holy Scriptures, and
the decisions of the Holy Fathers, that nothing
was to be said in reply ; so that laying aside
their opposition and acquiescing in her steadfast
reason, they undertook to fulfil all things.

394 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

CHAPTER III.

THE CHARITY OF MARGARET TOWARDS THE POOR— HER LENTS
—HER LOVE OF PRAYER.

17. Thus this admirable Queen who sought,
God helping her, to purify the House of God
from evil and errors, was herself indeed worthy
to be made from day to day a Temple of God,
which I truly have best known, since I both saw
her external works, and knew her inner conscience
as she manifested it to me. For to me she con-
descended to speak most intimately, and to open
the secrets of her heart ; not because there was
anything good in me, but because she thought
so. For with me she spoke of the salvation of
the soul, and of the sweetness of the perennial
life. Words full of all grace she uttered, which
indeed the Holy Spirit, indwelling in her heart,
spoke through her mouth. But with such com-
punction did she speak that it seemed as if she
would melt away with tears ; and with her tears
she moved me to weep. Beyond all mortal
creatures that I have known she was given to
prayer and fasting, and to works of mercy and
charity. If I speak first of prayer, in church no
one was more quiet than she was, in silence, but

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 395

in prayer no one more intent. Never saying
anything secular in the house of God, never
doing anything of earth, her only wont was to
pray, and praying to pour forth tears, being only
corporeally on earth, but in her mind close to
God ; for besides God and the things of God her
pure prayers sought nothing. But what shall I
say of her fasting, unless that by too much
abstinence she incurred the trouble of serious
infirmity r

18. To these two — that is, prayer and absti-
nence— she joined the benefactions of mercy.
What was ever tenderer than that heart, or
kinder to those in need ? Not only what was hers,
but her very self, if possible, she would give freely
to the poor. She herself was poorer than all her
poor; for they, not having, desired to have; but
she who had, sought to dispossess herself of what
she had. When she was walking or riding in
public, flocks of miserable people, of orphans,
and widows flowed together to her as to a most
tender mother, of whom none went away without
consolation. And when she had distributed all
that she carried with her for the use of the needy,
she was wont to accept garments or anything
from any rich people who were attending her, to

396 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

give to the poor, lest any needy one should go
away sad. Nor did those with her think this a
trouble ; they rather strove with each other to
offer what they had to her ; since they knew
certainly that she would restore twofold. Some-
times also she carried off the private possessions
of the King to bestow on the needy ; which pious
rapine he always found acceptable and pleasant.
For since he was wont himself to offer gold coins
on Maundy Thursday and at the Mass, she had
a habit of often stealing some of these to give to
some poor creature who appealed to her. And
often indeed, when the King came to know it,
pretending nevertheless not to know, he had
great delight in thefts of this kind ; but now and
then, being caught with the coins in her hand,
laughing he would say, " By my sentence, she is
found guilty." Nor was it only to the destitute
natives of this country, but to those of all nations,
drawing near at the fame of her mercy, that with
gladness of heart she would manifest the large-
ness of her munificence. It is allowed us to
say of her, " She has dispersed abroad ; she has
given to the poor ; her righteousness remaineth
for ever."

19. But who could unfold in detail whom and

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 397

how many she restored to freedom by paying their
ransom, of those from the nation of the English
whom the violence of their enemies had reduced
to slavery? For indeed she sent messengers to
search secretly throughout all the provinces of
the Scots, for the express purpose of finding out
who among the captives were bound down with
the hardest bondage and most inhumanly treated,
that they might bring back word to her where
and by whom they were thus afflicted ; and to
such, she, out of the deep compassion of her
heart, hastened swiftly to give help, and to release
them and restore them to liberty.

At that time there were in the kingdom of the
Scots, in diverse places, secluded in separate cells,
many who lived in great severity of life, not accord-
ing to the flesh, for they led while on this earth
a truly angelical life. These the Queen delighted
to honour and to love, venerating Christ in them ;
and often she would visit and converse with them
and commend herself to their prayers. And
when she could not prevail on them to accept
anything earthly from her, she would humbly
entreat that they would deign to employ her in
doing some work of mercy. Nor would anything
hinder her : whatever they desired this devoted

393 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

woman would fulfil to her utmost, whether it
were to relieve the poor from their need, or to
lift up any afflicted ones from the troubles with
which they were oppressed.

20. And since the church of St. Andrews was
much frequented for religious devotion by people
coming from all sides, she built little dwellings
on both sides of the Frith, which divides Lothian
from Scotland, that after the toils of the journey,
pilgrims and poor people might be able to turn
aside there and rest, and might find there all
things ready that are necessary for the refresh-
ment of the body. She also appointed servants
to be there for the sole purpose of providing
what was necessary for all who came, and that
they should minister to them with great attention.
For this purpose she also assigned boats to these
servants that they might ferry those who came
and went across, and never exact any payment
from them for the passage.1

21. Having thus unfolded the daily life of this
venerated Queen, and also said something of her
daily works of mercy, I will now try briefly to
tell something of the way in which she used to
pass her time in the forty days before Christmas,

1 Queen sferry.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 39.9

and throughout Lent. When she had reposed
a little at the beginning of the night, she went
into the church, and there, alone, went through
the Matin offices of the Holy Trinity, the Holy
Cross, and of St. Mary ; these finished, she began
the offices for the dead ; after which she com-
menced the Psalter, and did not cease until she
had gone through to the end. Whilst the Pres-
byters were celebrating the morning Lauds, she
either finished the Psalter she had begun, or
having gone through it once began again. Lauds
finished, she returned to her own chamber, and,
with the King himself, washed the feet of six
poor people, and used to ask for something to
alleviate their poverty. It was one chief duty of
the Chamberlain every night, before the entrance
of the Queen, to bring these poor people in, that
when she came in to wait on them, she might
find them ready. This being accomplished, she
went to take a little quiet and sleep.

22. But when morning had really come, she
arose, and set herself for some time to prayers
and psalms, between the psalms busying herself
about some work of mercy. She had brought
to her, at the first hours of the day, nine little
orphan children, destitute of all help, that she

400 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

might refresh them. For she ordered some
pleasant food, such as delights little children, to
be daily prepared for them ; and when they were
brought, she would place them on her knees and
make little portions of pap or broth for them, and
put it gently into their mouths with the spoons
she used herself. Thus the Queen, who was
honoured by all the people, for Christ's sake
served these little ones with the lowly services of
a most tender nurse and mother. It could indeed
be said of her as of the blessed Job, " From my
youth he (the fatherless) was brought up with
me. I have guided her (the widow) from my
mother's womb." While she was doing this,
it was the custom to introduce three hundred
poor people into the Royal Palace ; and when
they were all seated round in order, and the King
and the Queen stepped in, the doors were closed
by the servants; for except the chaplains, certain
monks, and some servants, none were allowed to
be present at their works of mercy. The King on
one side, the Queen on the other, waited on the
poor, and with great attention carried them the
meat and drink especially prepared for them.
Which being done, the Queen was wont to enter
the church, and then with many prayers and sighs

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 401

and tears to offer herself up to God. Besides
the Hours of the Holy Trinity, the Holy Cross,
and Holy Mary, in the space of the day and night,
on these holy clays she went through the Psalter
two or three times, and before the celebration of
public Mass she caused five or six Masses to be
sung privately before her.

23. These being finished, when the meal-time
came, she fed twenty-four poor people, herself
humbly serving them. For, besides all the alms-
giving I have mentioned above, as long as she
lived, she always maintained twenty-four poor
people all the year through, whom she ordered to
remain near her, and to accompany her whither-
soever she went. After she had devotedly served
Christ in these, she used to refresh herself. In
her own repast, so far from making provision for
the flesh to fulfil its desires, she scarcely allowed
herself the necessaries of life. She ate just what
was needful to sustain life, not for pleasure. Her
sober and meagre repast rather awakened hunger
than satisfied it; she tasted rather than took food.
This, I ask, let this be considered, what must have
been her self-denial in fasting, when such was her
abstinence in feasting ? And whilst all her life

was thus passed in self-denial, on these forty days

cc

402 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

before Easter and the Nativity of our Lord, she
used to chasten herself with incredible absti-
nence. Thus, through the too great rigour of her
fasting, she suffered towards the end of her life
acute pain in her stomach ; yet bodily infirmity
never weakened her energy in good works ; earnest
in sacred reading, instant in prayer, unwearied in
doing good, vigilantly exercising herself in all the
things of God. And knowing that it is written,
" Whom the Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and
scourgeth every son whom He receiveth," she
welcomed pain as the scourging of a most tender
father, with patience and thanksgiving.

24. Whilst she was thus given up to good
works, she was also suffering from continual
infirmities, that, as with the Apostle, strength
might be made perfect in weakness; and going
on from strength to strength, from day to day,
she was made better. Forsaking in her mind all
earthly things, all her heart glowed with the long-
ing for heavenly things, with heart and voice
saying with the Psalmist, " My heart thirsteth
for God, for the living God : when shall I come
and appear before God ? " Some admire in others
the signs of miracles, but I admire most in
Margaret the works of mercy ; for signs belong

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 403

both to the evil and the good ; but works of true
piety and charity are the special possessions of
the good. Those manifest holiness; but these
constitute it. More fit it is, I say, that we should
admire in Margaret the deeds which made her
holy, than signs, if there were any such, which
would merely show her holiness to men. Better
it is for us to wonder as we see in her the justice,
piety, mercy, and charity of the ancient Fathers,
than it would be to see any miracles. Yet I
think it would not be out of place to record some
things as indications belonging to a life so religious
as hers.

25. She had a book of the Gospels, ornamented
with gold and gems, on which the figures of the
four evangelists were illuminated with colours and
gold, and in which all the capital letters glittered
with gold. This manuscript she delighted in
more than in any of the rest which she was in the
habit of reading. It happened once that when some
one was carrying this precious book through a
ford, it was rather carelessly wrapped up in cloths,
and fell into the middle of the stream. The
bearer did not know it had fallen, and pursued
his journey. It was only when he wished to
bring her the book that he perceived he had lost

404 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

it. It was long sought for and not found. At
last it was found lying open in the depths of the
river, so that its leaves were moved about by the
incessant action of the water, and the little folds
of silk which covered the gold letters from being
rubbed against the leaves were swept away by the
force of the stream. Who would think the book
would be worth anything after this ? Who
would believe that one letter would appear ? Yet
most certainly it was taken out of the river
complete, unstained, unimpaired, so that not the
slightest trace of the water could be seen. The
whiteness of the leaves, the perfect form of the
letters, remained exactly as they were before it fell
into the river, except that in the last pages, here
and there, the slightest sign of moisture might
be observed. The book was brought back
to the Queen, and the miracle told me at the
same time ; and she, giving thanks to Christ,
held the book dearer than before. Whatever
others may think, I believe this sign was given
by our Lord on account of His love for that
venerated Queen.1

1 There is another story connected with a river which
is worth giving, as throwing light on Queen Margaret's
character and the customs of the time. A Hungarian

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 405

CHAPTER IV.

THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN— HOW IT WAS FORESEEN, AND
HOW PIOUSLY ACCOMPLISHED.

26. Whilst the Omnipotent God was prepar-
ing to recompense her pious works with eternal
rewards, she herself was preparing herself for the
entrance into that other life more earnestly than
ever. For, as was manifested a little while after-
wards by her own words, she evidently knew long
before of her exit from this life, and also of other
future things. Thus, talking with me privately,
she began to roll back the volume of her life in
order before me, and at several words to shed
floods of tears. In brief, so strong was her feel-
ing (compunctio) as she spoke, such the abundance
of her weeping, that it seemed to me there was
nothing she might not obtain from Christ. She

knight had come with the Atheling from the Continent,
and was the Chamberlain of the Queen. His name was
Bartholomew Ladislaus, or Leslyn, the ancestor of the Leslie
family. Once when the Queen was riding on a pillion
behind him across a flooded river, holding on to the belt
round his waist, he said to her, " Grip fast.''' " Gin the
buckle hand" she replied. " Grip fast" and a belt with
three buckles, have been the Leslie motto and coat-of-arms
ever since,

406 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

wept, and I also wept ; often we wept long in
silence since our words were broken by sobs.
For the flame of that compunction which was
burning her heart touched mine through her
spiritual words. Whilst through her tongue I
listened to the words of the Holy Spirit, and
through her words saw into her conscience, I
could not but judge myself unworthy of the
great grace of such intimacy.

27. When she had finished speaking of neces-
sary things, she began again thus: — "Farewell,"
she said ; " I shall not be long in this life after
this ; but you will live not a little while after me.
Two things therefore I ask of you : one, that as
long as you live you should remember my soul
in your Masses and prayers. The other, that
you would have care for my sons and daughters ;
that you would expend love on them ; that you
teach them, above all, to love God, and never
cease to teach them ; and that when you see any
of them exalted to the summit of earthly dignity,
all the more, as at once a father and a tutor
(magister), you would keep close to them ; I mean,
admonishing, and, if needful, censuring them;
lest on account of momentary honour any of them
should be puffed up with pride, lest they should

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 407

displease God by avarice, lest through the pros-
perity of this world they should neglect eternal
felicity. These are the things," she said, " which
I now, in the presence of God, who is now
standing by as a Third with us, entreat you to
promise me you will carry out with great solici-
tude." At these words of hers, I, once more
bursting into tears, promised to do diligently all
she asked ; for I did not dare to contradict her,
when I heard her thus unhesitatingly foretell
what was to be. For that she was foretelling
this, the event itself proves ; since I do live after
her death, and also I see her children in lofty
state and dignity. When that conversation was
over, having to return to my home, I said the last
farewell to the Queen. For afterwards I never
saw her face any more.

28. Not long after this she was seized with
infirmity more severe than she had ever before
been used to, and before the day when she was
called hence, was wasted away by the fire of
prolonged sickness. I will tell the story of her
departure as I learned it from her Presbyter,
whom she esteemed more closely than others
because of his simplicity, innocence, and chastity ;
who after the death of the Queen devoted himself

4o3 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

perpetually to the service of Christ for her soul,
and taking the habit of a monk at the sepulchre
of the uncorrupted body of the most holy Father
Cuthbert,1 offered himself up as an offering
(hostiam) for her. He, therefore, was with the
Queen inseparably in her last hours, and com-
mended her soul when departing from the body
with his prayers to Christ. Her departure,
(exitum) as he saw it, step by step, when often he
is questioned by me about it, he is wont to recall
with ever fresh tears.

29. " For half a year," he says, " and a little
more, she never rode on horseback, and but
rarely was able to rise from her bed. On the
fourth day before her death, while the King was
on an expedition,2 and separated by a great dis-
tance from her, so that by no swiftness of any
messenger could she have known what was hap-
pening on that day, being moved to greater
sadness than was usual with her, she said this to
us who were sitting around her — ' Perchance
to-day such evil has befallen the kingdom of the

1 The monastery where he was a monk, at Durham, then
within the borders of Malcolm Csnmore's kingdom.

2 The expedition into England which ended in his defeat
and death at Malcolm's Cross. She had removed from the
palace at Dunfermline to Edinburgh Castle.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 409

Scots as has not happened for many a long year.'
We hearing this, received it without much atten-
tion at the time ; but in a few days, when the
messenger arrived, we understood that on the
very day in which the Queen said these things,
the King had been slain. The Queen, indeed,
foreseeing what was to be, had earnestly sought
to withhold him from going with the army; but
for what cause I know not, for at that time we
did not attend to her warnings.

30. " When therefore the fourth day came after
the death of the King, she being a little relieved
of her infirmity, went into the oratory to hear
Mass; and there sought to fortify herself for her
departure, which was near at hand, by the Viaticum
of the Sacred Body and Blood of the Lord. She
was revived by partaking of that salutary food, but
her former pains before long becoming severer, and
the suffering increasing to the end, oppressed her
terribly. And what shall I do ? — why should I
linger ? It is as if, not being able to delay longer
the death of my lady and mistress, and to
prolong her life, I yet dread to approach her
death. But all flesh is grass, and all its glory as
the flower of the grass. The grass withered), and
the flower thereof falleth away. Her countenance

4i o EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

was already growing pallid in death when she
herself called me and other ministers of the
Sacred Altar to stand by her soul, and singing
to commend her to Christ. She also commanded
the Cross, which is called the Black Cross,1 which
she always held in the greatest veneration, to be
brought to her. But when the little chest in
which it was kept could not be opened quickly,
the Queen, groaning heavily, said, ' Ah! miser-
able and guilty that we are, we are not worthy to
look again on that holy Cross.' When however
it was taken out of the chest and brought to
her, she took it to her with reverence, embraced
it, kissed it fervently ; with her eyes and her
whole countenance she signified again and again
her delight. For although her whole body was
growing cold, still the heart throbbed with vital
heat, and she was continually praying. She

1 This Cross was a palm long, fabricated of the purest
gold with wonderful skill. It opened and shut like a
sheath, and in it could be seen a portion of the True Cross.
It had the Image of our Saviour sculptured in ivory, and
wonderfully decorated with ornaments of gold. This the
religious Queen Margaret brought with her to Scotland, and
transmitted as an heirloom to her sons, of whom the
youngest, David, built a magnificent temple for it near the
city, called Ilolyrood. — Aelred, quoted by the Bollandists,
Tomus ii. p. 335.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 41

repeated throughout the 50th Psalm,1 and all the
while placing the Cross before her eyes, held it
with both her hands.

31. "In the meantime, her son, who after his
father now held the helm of the kingdom, re-
turning from the army, now entered his mother's
chamber. What anguish then for him ! — what
torture of soul ! He stood there surrounded with
adversity on every side. He knew not on which
side to turn. He came to announce to his
mother the death of his father and his brother ;
and now he finds his mother, whom he loved
above all, herself dying. He knew not whom
first to bewail. The departure of his sweetest
mother pierced his heart with keener sorrow, as
he saw her lying there before his eyes all but dead.
And besides all these things, anxiety distressed
him about the kingdom, which he knew certainly
would be thrown into confusion by the death of
his father.

" Everywhere mourning and sorrow were
around him. The Queen, when it seemed as
if she were already lying in the agony of death,
wrapt from present things, suddenly, gathering
up her strength, spoke to her son. She asked
1 The 51st in the English version, the Miserere.

4i2 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

him about his father and his brother. But he
could not tell her the truth, fearing lest hearing
of their death she herself would at once die.
So he answered that they were well. But she
sighing heavily said, ' I know, my son, I know.
By this Holy Cross, by the closeness of our
relationship, I adjure thee to say what thou
knowest to be true.' He, thus constrained,
related to her all things as they had happened.
What then would you think she would do?
Who could have believed that in such adversities
there would not be some murmuring against
God ? At the same time that she had lost
her husband, she was also bereaved of her son,
whilst she herself was lying tortured with sick-
ness unto death. 'Yet in all these things she
sinned not with her lips, nor charged God
foolishly.' On the contrary, all the more, lifting
up her eyes and hands to heaven, she broke out
into thanksgivings, saying, 'I offer praise and
thanks to Thee, Almighty God, who givest me
such anguish to bear in my departure ; and me,
bearing such things, I hope Thou wiliest thus
to cleanse from some stains of sin.'

32. " She felt that death was there, at hand.
And thereupon she began the prayer which used

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 413

to be said by the Priest after receiving the
Body and Blood of the Lord. 'Domine Jesu
Christe qui ex voluntate Patris cooperante Spiritu
sancto per mortem tuam, mundum viviflcasti,
libera me.'1 And when she said, 'Libera me/
her soul, liberated from the fetters of the body,
migrated to the Christ she had always loved,
to the Author of true Liberty ; being made a
partaker of the felicity of those the example of
whose virtue she had followed. For such was
the tranquillity, such the quiet of her departure,
that we cannot doubt her soul migrated to the
region of eternal quiet and peace. And (which
is remarkable) her countenance, which as usual
with the dying grew all pale in death, was after
her death so suffused with colour blended with
whiteness, that she could be deemed not dead,
but sleeping.

" Therefore, her body being honourably shroud-
ed, as became a Queen, we bore it to the Church
of the Holy Trinity, which she herself had built.
There, as she herself had commanded, we laid

1 "Lord Jesus Christ, who by the will of the Father, with
the co-operation of the Holy Ghost, hast by Thy death given
life to the world, deliver me." It seems best to give the
words, as they must have been spoken, in Latin.

414 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS.

her in the grave opposite the altar, and the
venerable sign of the Holy Cross (which she
herself had erected). And thus her body now
rests in the place where she was wont to chasten
it with vigils, genuflexions, prayers, and shedding
of tears to God."

415

CONCLUSION.

It has been said that to draw the true lessons
of hope from history, we must take long ranges
of vision ; we must have broad horizons.

" For while the tired waves vainly breaking

Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Tar back through creeks and inlets making,

Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,

When daylight comes, comes in the light,
In front the sun climbs slow, — how slowly !

But westward, look, the land is light." *

The history of the long range of the centuries
we have been glancing through is surely full
of inspiration and encouragement. Again and

1 The first lines of that glorious Song of Hope must be given also—
"Say not, the struggle nought availetli,
The labour and the words are vain ;
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,

And as things have been, they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars ;

It may be in yon smoke concealed ;
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,

And, but for you, possess the field."— Arthur C lough.

4i 6 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

again — u the tired waves, vainly breaking," have
seemed " no painful inch to gain." Again and
again the best men have retreated from what
was apparently a lost battle ; again and again it
is not the best men who have won even in the
best causes, and yet in the end the best causes
have advanced. Hora novissima, tempore, pessima,
is no new lament.

Colman went mournfully back from the land
which had to all appearance ungratefully rejected
him, bearing with him the bones of Aidan, the
man of whom Bede (who thought him greatly
mistaken in some things) wrote that "to the
utmost of his power he took care to fulfil all
things in the apostolical and prophetical writings."
St. Wilfrid won the day against Aidan's disciples
— Wilfrid, of whom Montalembert, who rejoices
in his victory, nevertheless writes (in reference to
his influence in separating St. Etheldreda from
her husband) — " It is happily certain that no one,
to-day, in the Catholic Church, would have
authorized or approved his conduct." And yet
the adoption of the Roman time of Easter, and
the incorporation of the English Church with
the rest of Christendom, led to the unity not only
of the English Church, but of the English State,

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 417

so necessary for England herself, so necessary for
Christendom. For storms were gathering over
England and Europe, which neither Colman nor
Wilfrid could foresee ; a glacial epoch of ice-
bergs rushing down from the Northern seas ; a
volcanic eruption in the Arabian deserts, sweeping
away in its fiery current the civilizations and the
Churches of the East, and flooding Europe to its
centre, creeping with resistless, scorching force
by Africa and Spain to the heart of France.
Patrick, Columba, and Columban could not fore-
see the ravages of the Norsemen, or the conquests
of the Moslem. But in the far West they were
unconsciously storing up weapons, and enkindling
hearts, for the warfare of the Cross which was to
beat them back. Colman, mournfully retiring as
from a lost field, could not foresee the Danes, or
Mohammed ; but the battle, which must have
seemed to Colman a defeat, was really con-
solidating the forces of England and Europe into
the unity needed to withstand the coming
floods."

The " eyes as a flame of fire," which see and
guide those who are fighting for Him, (and
cannot foresee,) saw that (as Bede the opponent
of Colman wrote) "the object which they had in

D D

4i 8 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

view was the same, that is, the redemption of
mankind."

" Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it
be afraid" echoes back from every century, when
the sum of its apparent defeats and its real
victories is reckoned up. Those words, we
know, were first spoken to the disciples about to
forsake Him and flee ; from the heart so soon to
be " exceeding sorrowful, even unto death ; " so
soon to be broken on the Cross ; spoken by the
lips so soon from the Cross royally to open
Paradise to the penitent ; so soon to say in the
joy of Resurrection, as the Great Shepherd,
"Feed My sheep.".

Again and again the words have been needed,
and have been spoken, " Ye believe in God,
believe also in Me!9

For He who spoke them is always here, no
mere Historic Founder, but a living Presence
with His Church, " all the days to the end of the
world."

Let us not be afraid of the past or the future ;
of love of liberty, or of reverence for authority.
The two tendencies are always there, and always
will be there ; with their diverse uses and their
several dangers.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 419

Those who, being free, move on and make
progress, are sure to differ and divide. Those
who agree and keep still and hold the positions
already won, are certainly apt to go to sleep, and
let what is won crumble and go to ruin.

We cannot, thank God, suppress each other
in Church or State, although we cannot, on the
other hand, always like each other's ways.

It is remarkable how in the contemporary
histories of the nations around us now, two
opposite tendencies seem at work. There is
the tendency to consolidate many small States
into a few great States or Empires. And there
is, on the other hand, the tendency to develop
the smaller nationalities. The age which has
witnessed the creation of the German Empire,
and is witnessing the advance of the British
Empire (to say nothing of other consolidations
and centralizations), is also seeing a fresh
awakening of keen and intense national feeling
in the smaller nations, such as Bohemia, Portugal,
or the Celtic races, manifesting itself in the revival
of national literatures and customs and affinities.
In this also, let us not try to suppress each other
(thank God we cannot !) politically, nationally,
ecclesiastically, " lest one good custom should

420 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

corrupt the world." In this material world with
its infinite varieties and continual variations; in
our human race with its countless diversities, the
reign of uniformity and universal dullness shall
never be. That is only possible in inorganic
nature, and not even there as long as fire and
water counterwork and interact.

The moon may lose her fire and water, and
become dead. But the sun still burns and
shines on, consuming itself, and therefore giving
light and heat to all.

And if the sun cools, if heaven and earth pass
away, "the words of Christ shall never pass
away," for they are morally and spiritually and
therefore eternally true; and they are eternally
creative words. The Light of the World, and the
Light of every man that cometh into the world,
shall never grow cold or fade. Nine centuries
have passed away since the last of the Saints
spoken of in these pages entered into joy.
Moon after moon of reflected light may indeed
grow cold. Colman went away sorrowful from
the land that he had so faithfully served. The
Benedictines who followed him became great
landlords and depositaries of books, and ceased
to be great Missionaries. The Franciscans, who

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 421

followed these, and " made a religious revolution
in the towns," and revived the faith through the
whole country, themselves needed reform again
and again. Yet "still comes, flooding in, the
main," because it is no mere impersonal tide of
life that is ebbing and flowing around us, but
the personal Presence of Eternal Love. The
Abbess Hilda might mourn the vanishing of her
familiar teachers, the passing away of the holiest
she had known into other lands. But the lesson
they had taught lived on, and the great English
literature whose first springs she watched and
helped to unseal through Caedmon, flowed on to
Shakespeare, and flows on in Tennyson and
Browning to-day.

Bede the Benedictine died translating the
Gospels — the Gospel of St. John (whom the
Celtic Church called " St. John of the Breast "),
not into Latin for the priests, but into English
for the people.

Wycliffe translated the whole of the Sacred
Scriptures for the people, and spread them into
cottages and villages through every corner of the
land.

The English Reformation, over which so many
of the best Englishmen broke their hearts on

422 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

opposite sides, and in which the best results often
seemed not to be brought about by the best men,
nevertheless gave the English Bible, and kept it
for ever open to all English-speaking races ; and
in its especial Anglican form (which nevertheless
troubled the consciences of some of the most
fervent Reformers of the time) has preserved for
the nation the Liturgy hallowed by the use of
ages, and through it the priceless inheritance of
a solemn and simple Common Prayer in the
mother tongue.

Of England it can indeed never be said, " The
Book whose teaching has changed the face of the
world ; the Book that is found everywhere and
every day ; the Book that God has placed in the
foundations" of the Church, the Gospel, is rarely
read " ; or " the habit of reading the Holy Gospels
has almost entirely disappeared from the home "
(le foyer catholique).1

Thank God, " the spirit of liberty, the spirit
of the family, the spirit of religion, the three
fundamental bases of all human society worthy
of the name," are preserved among us to-day.

To-day Saints as true as Patrick and Columba

1 Lcs Saints Evangiles, Traduction Nouvelle, par Henri
Lasserre.

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 423

and Aidan are still given us; for instance, the
little girl, who at twelve years old, seeing a poor
drunken man guarded through the street by the
police, and mocked at by the crowd, thought
only how lonely he must be, and walked along
the street beside him with her hoop and stick —
and afterwards spent her whole life in walking
beside the lowest and lowliest to save them — has
but just left us.1

And still we have Martyrs as devoted as Boni-
face. Many amongst us have touched the hands
and heard the voices of men who, in Africa, in
India, in the South Seas, have given their lives
for Christ the Redeemer, and to carry on His
redemption of the world.

Tria juncta in uno, — Celt and Saxon (if we are
to be allowed still to use the old-fashioned names),
fiery and tender Columba, glowing Aidan, wise
and loving Bede, queenly Brigid and Hilda, brave
and statesmanlike Boniface, and gentle and win-
ning Margaret, — all these varied types of charac-
ter and gift, are with us still. May they be
ever with us ; may we henceforth, more than ever,
work together for the good of each other and the
world, none separating us or making us afraid !
1 Catharine Booth.

424 EARLY CHRISTIAN MISSIONS OF

He whose service united us through all these
past centuries to help and bless each other and
Europe, — He and He only can and will unite us
still.

For we must remember that the mottoes of
the two Knightly Orders of the Bath, Triajuncta
in uno: and of St. Patrick, Quis Separabitf had
originally, and have ever, a deeper meaning and
purpose than any mere national sympathy, however
beautiful and fruitful.

Triajuncta in uno, meant originally the Holy
Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost:
Eternal Love ; and " if the world is ruled by
perfect love," how can our hearts be troubled or
afraid for any past, or at any future? That
promise of inexhaustible power and peace was
followed in a few hours, we know, by the cry
from Priest and People of " Crucify Him, Crucify
Him!" by the mocking, "Hail, King of the Jews !"
of the Roman soldiers. And yet in a few hours
the Roman soldier said, " Truly this was the Son
of God"; the people "smote upon their breasts
and returned " ; and in a few weeks " many of the
Priests believed." And to-day, in this remote
island, to the utmost bounds of the earth, at His
Eucharistic Feast, we make melody to Him in

IRELAND, SCOTLAND, AND ENGLAND. 425

the heart and say, " Thou only art holy ; Thou
only art the Lord. Thou only, O Christ, with
the Holy Ghost, art most high in the glory of
God the Father."

For those whose religion begins at the Cross,
certainly no despondency at any apparent defeat
of good, no fear of any final defeat of truth, is
possible.

For the true motto of all true union, in this
broken and divided world, is Quis Separabitf in
its oldest and its deepest use. " Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ ? " — from
Christ the Mediator between race and race,
between class and class, between man and man,
everywhere and for ever !

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